Rep. Jared Huffman (D-CA) credited a Breitbart News story for killing the National Museum of Play Recognition Act.
“That’s how it works these days,” Huffman proclaimed on the House floor Wednesday. “Breitbart posts something, Congress reacts.”
House Republican leadership previously announced a vote on the bill introduced by New York Democrat Rep. Joe Morelle to designate the Margaret Woodbury Strong Museum in Rochester, New York, as the “National Museum of Play.”
Huffman said a Breitbart News report published Tuesday afternoon revealing some of the museum’s more controversial programs spurred House Republicans to yank the bill.
“Shortly after the Breitbart post went up, this bill disappeared from the agenda,”Huffman said Wednesday. “It was pulled.”
Breitbart News reported Tuesday:
A page on the museum’s website dedicated to “Toyetic Oppression: Black Toys and Black People” asserts that is “useful to explore Black playthings by whether they proliferate violence through Negrophobia or Negrophilia.” It also includes a lesson titled “Exploring the Genius of Black Women in Video Gaming.” Another page is dedicated to “feminism in the doll industry.”
The museum also offers “diversity and inclusion internships.”
Huffman, who called the bill “innocuous,” said from the House chamber “We are told that many Republicans think the museum is too woke and too DEI. That’s right, that’s the explanation we’ve been given for why the deal’s off and the Democratic bill can’t be considered today.”
The California Democrat described additional exhibits and statements from the museum, including “a small temporary exhibit” on “the pivotal role that black designers have played in diversifying toy aisles” and an Instagram post “about Hispanic Ballerina Barbie” and how those dolls “come in various ethnicities and styles encouraging inclusivity and diversity.”
“Are our Republicans friends just taking their orders from the far-right website Breitbart, which posted yesterday, attacking this museum for its content and for offering what it called ‘Diversity and Inclusion Internships’?”
The museum’s own website refers to “Diversity and Inclusion Internships.”
Breitbart News’s initial report, which revealed the bill would be considered under suspension of the rules, read:
Bills advanced under suspension require two-thirds support but circumvent rules designed, in part, to ensure adequate time to scrutinize legislation. Suspension bills in practice are often assembled together in large packages requiring only one vote or voted on in quick succession.
Many suspension bills target parochial issues, such as renaming post offices, important to individual members or a small constituency within their district. Members often look the other way at suspension bills they might ordinarily oppose in order to ensure their own bills can pass without issue.
In 2024 the museum received nearly $400,000 in taxpayer funding through the National Endowment of the Humanities.
In January, Axios reported on “Breitbart’s D.C. deployment” and increasing influence in the nation’s capitol. That same month, Politico reported a similar story: “Trump’s back – and so is Breitbart.”
Bradley Jaye is Deputy Political Editor for Breitbart News. Follow him on X/Twitter and Instagram @BradleyAJaye.
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