Rocco Does Peoria; Congress Does a Number on the NEA

Rocco Landesman with the cast of "Rent" from Peoria's Eastlight Theatre; Kathy Chitwood, the company's executive director, shoulders Rocco.
Photo by Adam Gerik

It must have been quite a scene in Peoria last Friday, as important arts critics, including Bloomberg's Jeremy Gerard and the Washington Post's Peter Marks, trailed Rocco Landesman, the new chairman of the National Endowment of the Arts, as he did his penance for disparaging the Illinois town. By all accounts, Peorians were tickled pink to have a cultural eminence in their midst, while Rocco was a gracious guest. After the lovefest was over, Peoria received 42 minutes of audio podcast time in He Played Peoria---a post on NEA's "Art Works" blog. Whether this will translate into generous federal grants remains to be seen.

But falling under the radar of reporters on the Rocco Beat was a less heartwarming development---meddlesome language in the recent federal appropriations bill for the NEA (go here and then scroll down to click on H11018). This mischief was accomplished by legislators intent on micromanaging the agency.

You may remember that when I recently questioned the merits of NEA's The Big Read during my conversation with Landesman, he told me that the program was under review for consuming scarce resources that might be better used elsewhere.

Little did I know then that Congress had already taken steps to protect The Big Read, perhaps because it had gotten an early heads-up about Landesman's lack of enthusiasm.

Here's the inappropriate appropriations language:

The conferees [of the House and Senate] commend the National Endowment for the Arts for promoting literacy and reading in the United States through the highly acclaimed Big Read program. The Big Read engages communities of all sizes and Americans of all ages by celebrating the literary works of American writers. Since 2005, the NEA has awarded grants--leveraged with millions of private sector dollars--in every State and virtually every Congressional district in the United States....

The conferees remain committed to the Big Read program and direct the NEA to report to the House and Senate Committees on Appropriations, no later than 60 days after enactment of this Act, with a detailed funding plan for the continuation of this popular and successful program.

Why bother to engage arts experts in the rigorous process of making informed decisions about programs meriting federal support, when we've got the Congressional culturati ready and eager to do the job? This intrusion, to me, crosses the line between Congressional oversight and Congressional interference.