WASHINGTON -- A decade after Congress threatened to kill it, the National Endowment for the Arts is alive and well and looking squeaky clean.
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Gone are the controversies over federally sponsored homoerotic and crucifix-in-urine exhibits.

"Do I want to bring out an offensive piece of art of no quality? Not on my watch," NEA Chairman Dana Gioia said in an interview.

The Republicans' Contract with America in 1994 put the NEA on its hit list, and in 1997, then-House Republican Leader Dick Armey called the NEA "the single most visible and deplorable black eye in the arts in America." The House voted to abolish the agency, but the Senate saved it.

In Gioia's two years as chairman, the NEA has shifted its focus to bringing "the highest quality" arts to all corners of the country -- and grants to virtually every congressional district.

"I am sure there will be controversies in the future of the NEA. I am confident we will be able to defend them," he said.

Gioia, a California poet tapped by President Bush, sees the NEA's mission as "public service."

The NEA is even supporting the troops: taking Shakespeare and other cultural events to military bases and launching a writers' program for veterans returning from Iraq.

The NEA has put jazz on the road with a 50-state Jazz Masters tour. A traveling art exhibit of "American Masterpieces" won backing from first lady Laura Bush.

Gioia's moves are winning rave reviews from some members of Congress who once voted to disband the NEA.

"I wanted to abolish them," said Rep. Sue Myrick, R-N.C., now an NEA fan.

Gioia "has done what the agency needed to do -- put the emphasis on the community and doing things for kids [instead of funding the] stupid and frivolous," she said.

Myrick said she would be "totally amazed" to see any repeat of the 1990s uproar over NEA funds that enabled a show of Robert Mapplethorpe's homoerotic photos and Andres Serrano's photo exhibit of a plastic crucifix in a jar of urine.

Last year, grants were awarded in all but two of the 435 congressional districts.

Gioia's reviews are more mixed in the arts community, where some resent the NEA's focus on national programs.

"The chairman is a little bit controversial," said Sheila Smith, executive director of Minnesota Citizens for the Arts. But she also praised Gioia for showing "each member of Congress how the funds benefit their district."

The NEA last week announced $61 million for 800 recipients, including more than $10 million for 124 projects in the South. The grants will fund everything from a documentary on blacks in the New Deal community of Tillery, N.C., to $48,000 to the Fairfax County, Va.-based American String Teachers Association, to encourage careers in teaching string instruments.

Many of the NEA's opponents are no longer in Congress, but a cadre of lawmakers still would like to abolish the agency.

Last year, 112 House members voted for a proposal by Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colo., to halve NEA's budget.

Tancredo listed several bizarre-sounding projects that received NEA funding -- including restoration of a Houston house decorated with beer cans and free legal advice for artists.

"We should reduce the funding for the National Endowment for the Arts and Humanities and hopefully eventually stop doing it at all," he said.

Marilyn Rauber writes for the Washington Bureau of Media General News Service.