Wash Times: NEA Crossed Line From Persuasion to Coercion

Washington Times Editorial:

National Endowment for the Arts Chairman Rocco Landesman owes American taxpayers an explanation.

Last month, a top NEA official gathered artists and arts organizations in a conference call that also included a White House official and clearly asked the arts community to get behind the administration’s agenda, including the current top priority, health care. A mere 48 hours after the request, 21 art organizations led by an arts lobbying organization, Americans for the Arts, released the first of two public statements endorsing health care reform and urging Congress to act.

Rocco Landesman

Such a meeting would be disturbing enough — a grant-maker backed by the White House asking grant recipients to support the administration agenda crosses the line from persuasion to coercion. Artists and arts groups that want funding from the NEA to continue cannot help but feel pressure to comply with the administration’s wishes. That alone is wrong.

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However, when you add in the nearly $2 million the NEA handed out to those very arts organizations in the four months before the conference call — including more than $1 million in stimulus funds — it is time to start wondering whether a line has been crossed from merely unethical into the land of special prosecutors. Such an investigation might be the only way to get straight answers.

So far, the administration’s response has been a stonewall. Yosi Sergant, then NEA communications director, denied that the NEA had organized the call or that he even had a copy of invitations to join the call. That was not true. A copy of the e-mail invitation from Mr. Sergant himself through his NEA e-mail account is now available on the Web. After this episode, the NEA communications office no longer responded to phone calls or e-mail.

You can read the full piece here.