The Republican-controlled House of Representatives was schedule to vote on an appropriations bill for the Interior Department today, but the vote has been canceled because House leadership mistakenly(?) allowed an amendment to be added to the bill that would ban the confederate flag.
The fight erupted after the House adopted an amendment from Rep. Jared Huffman (D-Calif.) late Tuesday evening to ban the display of Confederate flags in national cemeteries. It passed on a voice vote with less than ten minutes of debate. [...]
But Republicans who found out about the amendment after the fact indicated that they would oppose the underlying bill.
By canceling the vote, House Republicans will avoid the uncomfortable floor debate that would undoubtedly accompany the appropriations bill after another amendment, introduced by Representative Ken Calvert (R-CA), was adopted late last night.
Calvert's amendment stripped the previous amendment added by Representative Huffman.
The amendment to the House's Interior and Environment spending bill would allow for the display of Confederate flags at national cemeteries managed by the National Park Service (NPS) even though members voted to ban the practice earlier this week.
This is, of course, another monkey in the wrench for Speaker of the House John Boehner who set a goal of completing the appropriations process by mid-July.
For his part, Boehner said the vote was canceled because he doesn't want to have the debate.
House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) said Thursday that he doesn't want the debate over allowing Confederate flags on certain public lands to become a "political football." [...]
"I think it's time for some adults here in Congress to sit down and have conversation about how to address this issue," he told reporters. "I do not want this to become some political football."
This would be a far easier task if the Republican party actually consisted of adults.