House GOP In Full Retreat From Confederate Flag

Confederate battle flags fly outside the museum at the Confederate Memorial Park in Mountain Creek, Ala., Tuesday, July 19, 2011. More than 60,000 Confederate veterans came home to Alabama after the Civil War, and re... Confederate battle flags fly outside the museum at the Confederate Memorial Park in Mountain Creek, Ala., Tuesday, July 19, 2011. More than 60,000 Confederate veterans came home to Alabama after the Civil War, and residents are still paying a tax that supported them 150 years after the fighting began. The tax now pays for the park, which is located on the same 102-acre tract where elderly veterans used to stroll. The tax once brought in millions for Confederate pensions, but lawmakers sliced up the levy and sent money elsewhere as the men and their wives died. No one has seriously challenged the continued use of the money for a memorial to the ?Lost Cause,? although a long-serving black legislator wants to eliminate state funding for the park. (AP Photo/Dave Martin) MORE LESS
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Updated at 11:54 a.m. on Jul 9th

House Republicans have cancelled the Thursday vote on the Interior spending bill to avoid debating a hastily-called amendment to the bill that would have allowed the display of Confederate flags on federal lands.

House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) confirmed on Thursday that the House would suspend debate on the Interior spending bill until members sort out the amendments related to the Confederate flag.

“That bill is gonna sit in abeyance until we come to some resolution on this,” Boehner said of the Confederate flag amendments.

The vote had been announced Wednesday evening in response to amendments to the bill passed by the House on Tuesday that restrict the display of the Confederate flags on certain public lands.

Politico’s Jake Sherman first reported that the vote was cancelled.

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