The bill, sponsored by Reps. J.C. Watts, R-Okla., and Tony Hall, D-Ohio, will encourage donations to religious charities through the tax code, and will let such groups compete for federal dollars. It was momentarily held up on Wednesday when Rep. Mark Foley, R-Fla., led a small team of GOP moderates to protest a provision that extends to publicly funded religious charities the same exemption from the religious aspect of the 1964 Civil Rights Act that religious organizations have.

Foley's problem with the bill lies in the fact that it would let federally funded religious charities discriminate against, say, Jews or gays when making employment decisions for secular positions in the charity. And even if a state or locality had nondiscrimination laws in place, the religious charity would be exempted from those laws. Foley tried to offer an amendment to the bill to change this, but the GOP leadership blocked it.

Foley's concerns were enough to derail a vote on the bill for a day. But by Wednesday evening, John Feehery, the spokesman for House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., was saying that the bill -- unchanged -- would face a vote Thursday. "We'll win," Feehery predicted -- correctly.

Wednesday evening, Foley said 30 to 40 Republicans had expressed concern about the bill's overriding of state and local laws. But then the GOP arm-twisting began, he said, and support for his argument quickly crumbled. A safe estimate of Republicans standing with him was probably closer to 15, he said. Feehery disagreed. "Closer to five," he said.

Again, by the time of the final vote at least, Feehery was right: The only four GOP opponents were Reps. Ron Paul of Texas, Don Manzullo of Illinois, Connie Morella of Maryland and Bob Stump of Arizona. Even Foley voted for the bill, as did Rep. Christopher Shays, a thorn in the side of House GOP leadership especially since Hastert refused to move his campaign finance reform bill to the full House last week.

Rep. Jim Kolbe, R-Ariz., the only openly gay Republican in the House, voted for the Watts-Hall bill, encouraged to do so by Deputy Whip Rep. Roy Blunt, R-Mo., in a meeting right before the vote.

"Negotiations" between Hastert's and Foley's offices began on Wednesday, but Foley's office considered the offers from the speaker to be meaningless. Hastert said he'd let Foley bring up his amendment for a subsequent appropriations bill, which he would be permitted to do anyway, and he offered a moment of floor time for a "colloquy," wherein Foley and one of the bill's sponsors could have a dialogue about the matter. Foley was so disappointed, he didn't even participate in the colloquy. The task fell to Rep. Mark Kirk, R-Ill., who ended up voting for the Watts-Hall bill, too.

"Obviously, they worked their will," said Shays. "And they didn't know how the Democrats were going to vote." In the end, Shays voted for the bill because he supports it in principle, and trusts that the moderates' concerns will get addressed when the Democratic-controlled Senate takes up its version of the bill.

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