The House Rules Committee did not place legislation to prohibit Confederate flags from federal cemeteries into an Interior Department spending bill.
The Hill reported that House Democrats Rep. Jared Huffman of California and Rep. Hakeem Jeffries of New York submitted amendments that would also have banned National Park System federal contracts from selling Confederate flags at any national park system facility.
Huffman's amendment was left out of the final compromise measure, according to The Hill.
Rep. Huffman responded, noting the national controversy over race that has erupted over the sniper attacks on police in Dallas and the killings of Philando Castile and Alton Sterling.
"In a week when most African-Americans are reflecting on our country's need for racial reconciliation and trying to move forward, House Republicans are doubling down on our country's racist past," Huffman wrote.
"If House Republicans cannot support the movement to take down the Confederate battle flag on federal property, they should at least have the guts to cast their votes in public and let it be known to voters where they stand," Huffman added.
A similar bill by Huffman in 2015 resulted in the House GOP casting aside the entire Interior Department appropriations bill rather than hold a vote in support of the Confederate flag. Last year's vote took place around the time of a racially motivated killing at a South Carolina church.
White House spokesman Josh Earnest pointed out that House Republicans used an approval of funding to fight the Zika virus as an attempt to undo a law that bans federal cemeteries from displaying Confederate flags,
according to the Washington Examiner.
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