House GOP Invites Diversity Mandates to Intel Agencies

Aside for oil drilling-related legislation, there weren't any high profile partisan legislative fights on Capitol Hill last week.  The major piece of legislation that was brought to the floor and ultimately passed the House last week was the highly bi-partisan reauthorization of appropriations for our intelligence agencies (H.R. 754).  The bill passed 392-15.  Unfortunately, it is these "non-controversial" bills that are prone to insertions of reckless amendments.  After all, who is watching the banal congressional proceedings of consensus legislation?

On Thursday, Republicans allowed Democrats to offer two amendments that would mandate pilot programs and studies to facilitate diversity within the intelligence agencies.  I don't begrudge the GOP leaders for running an open process and allowing Democrats to offer amendments.  The problem is that they adopted the amendments by voice vote, instead of voting them down.  Well, if the timeworn bromide that "Republicans only control one-half of one-third of government" is sufficient justification for failure to pass prudent legislation, it should certainly justify their scuttling of multicultural amendments.

Here are the two amendments: