NEA Panel Apparently Heals Split : Funding: The issue over distribution of arts monies, however, is still unresolved.

A 30-member summit panel, apparently resolving a split in the creative community over the future of the National Endowment for the Arts, called Friday for renewal of the NEA with no limits on the content of work it supports and no change in the state-federal formula governing distribution of arts money.

At the same time, the task force, convened in Washington earlier this week by Rep. Pat Williams (D-Mont.) to try to build a clear NEA consensus among arts groups that had moved dangerously apart, carefully noted that strictly obscene work is “without artistic merit.”

However, a key House Republican immediately challenged the strategy and said he would press on with a controversial proposal to completely restructure the way public funding of the arts occurs in the United States.

Rep. Tom Coleman (R-Mo.) said he would continue to push for substitution of a plan to turn 60% of the NEA’s current budget over to state arts councils--a move that would triple the proportion of federal funds that states get. The NEA would retain 40%, with most of the money reserved for support of the largest, Establishment arts institutions.

In a Thursday interview in Washington, Coleman said that the formula would also redistribute arts funding among states and that the plan was intended to diminish federal arts money channeled to California and New York, the two states that currently receive the largest share of such funds.

Coleman dismissed the recommendations of the Williams task force, saying: “I don’t know that it’s appropriate that we, as members of Congress, put (any interest group) in one room, have them come out with what they want and then we’re supposed to buy off on it.

“I don’t think that’s the way the process is supposed to work. They ought to have input. They ought to have influence, but I think if you separate this out and suggest, (for instance), that we’re going to put all the car makers in a room and have them write the Clean Air Act, and we’re supposed to go along with it, that’s not good government.”

When the study commission, which consisted of representatives of 26 national arts organizations, two practicing artists and two citizen members, began its deliberations Wednesday, Williams announced that he was abandoning a bill drafted by the White House to renew the NEA essentially as it exists now. Williams said he would convert the special commission recommendations into legislative language and substitute that bill for the President’s proposal.

The continuing division between the Williams plan--which is essentially identical to the original White House proposal in terms of its rejection of content controls and any shifting of federal-state funding--and Republican congressional alternatives made it unclear how the task force recommendations will affect the debate.

Williams said he will hold a hearing June 7 on the arts groups’ plan and the Coleman alternative. Simultaneously, the American Arts Alliance said it was organizing “Arts Day USA,” a national unity observance for the creative community, on the same date.

The Williams task force reported its recommendations unanimously, a result that appeared to indicate that the National Assembly of State Arts Agencies, which had endorsed Coleman’s shift in NEA funding to state art agencies and was represented on the task force, had completely backed away from the controversial plan that threatened to split arts groups.

“I think the political significance of the statement lies in the unity behind it,” said Anne Murphy, executive director of the American Arts Alliance. “Every arts organization, from large to small, agreed and coalesced behind this document. We’ll go forward in a united way to get it implemented. There’s always time.”

“We’re going to keep fighting. We’re hoping the American public will come forward,” said Joy Silverman, field organizer for the grass-roots National Campaign for Freedom of Expression.

“A profound chilling effect now afflicts the arts and the exchange between artists, arts organizations, audiences and their congressional representatives,” said the preamble to the task force report in appealing for unity inside--and outside--the arts community. “This must stop.

“Recent events have seemed to polarize members of the arts community, the Congress and the general public regarding the issues of freedom of expression and accountability. In the heat of this debate, we have all to some degree lost sight of the fundamental consensus that underlies a free and civilized society: that freedom of expression is among our most important and cherished rights and that accountability in the expenditure of public funds is essential to a democratic process.”

The Williams panel proposed that:

The endowment be renewed for five more years, with no language in the legislation restricting the kinds of artworks the agency can finance and that the existing funding formula apportioning money to state arts councils be preserved.

While there should be no restrictions on artistic freedom, special note should be taken of the lack of any place in legitimate art of work that is only obscene. “Obscenity is without artistic merit, is unprotected by the First Amendment . . . and we do not support it,” the task force concluded.

The NEA undertake a new national arts education initiative, with $40 million in new funds added to the NEA’s existing $175-million appropriation recommended for 1991 by President Bush.

A 12-member presidential commission created by Congress last year, but not yet operational, extend its life to as much as three years, and that the NEA open virtually all of its grant-review and policy-review meetings to the public. Some review sessions are now closed.

Coleman’s remarks about how his plan would benefit some states at the expense of New York and California came when a reporter asked how growing opposition to his plan among state arts councils might affect the political prospects for passage of the radical restructuring program in Congress. Since Coleman announced his intention to introduce such legislation, at least seven state art agencies, including California’s, have come out in opposition.

“(Opposition from) New York and California, I can possibly understand,” Coleman said. “They may be getting more per capita from the NEA than they would under this new distribution formula.”

An NEA spokesman said that, in 1989, California received $16 million in NEA grant money and New York got $39.9 million. The two states together accounted for 32.7% of all NEA money that year, according to the spokesman.

Coleman said he is still working on drafting language to appear in his bill that would regulate the acceptable content of federally funded art. But he said the wording will probably only repeat phrasing in the U.S. Supreme Court verdict in Miller vs. California, a 1974 landmark case that stands as the operating law on the question.

The Missouri congressman said his bill’s language would edit out a phrase in the NEA’s 1990 funding bill that was originally part of an amendment by Sen. Jesse Helms (R-N.C.) that expanded the obscenity restrictions. “From that standpoint, I think it would be more acceptable to the arts community than current law,” he said, “and not as broad as some people on the right would like.”

Coleman also sought to distance himself and other moderate Republicans from what he characterized as a fringe wing of the party, led by Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Lomita), that is working for complete abolition of the federal arts agency.

“I feel that, as Republicans, we have a special responsibility because of Rohrabacher and others who have made this an issue and tried to abolish the agency,” Coleman said. “It didn’t represent the party’s beliefs and it didn’t represent mainstream thinking. We wanted a vehicle that would show Republican support for the arts, but accountability, as well.”