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 The House canceled consideration of a fiscal 2016 spending bill
for the Interior Department, which funds the park service. An
amendment to that bill, by Republican Representative Ken Calvert of
California, was pending and would have continued to allow the
limited display of Confederate flags in the cemeteries, many of them
adjacent to Civil War battlefields.
House Speaker John Boehner, a Republican from Ohio, said he wanted a
bipartisan discussion on how to move forward on the issue. "That
bill is going to sit in abeyance until we can come to some
resolution on this," he said of the Interior Department spending
bill.
The Civil War-era flag is viewed as a symbol of slavery and racism
by some in the United States and of Southern heritage by others.
Democrats had flocked to the House floor earlier on Thursday to rail
against the amendment, displaying the Confederate battle flag as
they did so.
 "The Confederate battle flag is nothing more than a symbol of racial
hatred and oppression," declared Representative Hakeem Jeffries, a
black Democrat from New York. "I stand here with chills next to it."
Jeffries said the Republican amendment, if passed, would reverse
House action earlier in the week, when lawmakers adopted by voice
vote Democratic amendments to restrict further the flag's display on
National Park Service land.
But Republican Representative Steve King of Iowa said Confederate
symbols were protected by the First Amendment to the U.S.
Constitution, which guards freedom of speech.
"I grew up in the North," King said, but added: "The Confederate
flag always was the symbol of the pride of the South."
The controversial amendment's sponsor, Representative Calvert, said
it would only have codified National Park Service policy, which
includes restrictions on the Confederate flag's display.
He said he made the proposal after Republican leaders brought it to
him at the request of some Southern Republicans.
"Looking back, I regret not conferring with my colleagues on the
other side of the aisle," Calvert said in a statement.
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The slayings of nine black people at a church in Charleston, South
Carolina last month sparked an intense dialogue over the legacy of
slavery and its symbols, after photos surfaced of Dylann Roof, the
white man charged in the shootings. They showed him posing with the
Confederate battle flag on a website displaying a racist manifesto.
In Columbia, South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley signed a bill on
Thursday afternoon to remove permanently a Confederate battle flag
from the state capitol grounds.
Boehner said he did not want the issue to become a "political
football." But Democrats were unwilling to let the matter drop even
after the vote was canceled.
At the White House, spokesman Josh Earnest seized the opportunity to
blast House Republicans as "out of step with the vast majority of
Americans."
House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi of California proposed that any
state flag containing any portion of the Confederate battle flag -
other than a flag displayed by a lawmakers' office - be removed from
the U.S. Capitol grounds. Republicans used their majority to
sideline her proposal to committee.
Mississippi's state flag has the Confederate battle flag in its
upper left-hand corner. Other state flags, such as Alabama's and
Florida's, contain design elements similar to those in the battle
flag.
(Additional reporting by Richard Cowan; Editing by Kevin Drawbaugh
and Jonathan Oatis)
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reserved.]
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