by Kaylee Greenlee
A bill to remove statues of Confederate leaders and figures who advocated for white supremacy from the Capitol passed the House on a bipartisan vote Wednesday, the New York Times reported.
The House voted 305 to 113 to remove the statues as part of a broad effort to take symbols of racism out of public spaces, the Times reported. The legislation was introduced by House Majority Leader and Democratic Maryland Rep. Steny H. Hoyer.
“These painful symbols of bigotry and racism—they have no place in our society, and certainly should not be enshrined in the United States Capitol,” co-sponsor of the bill and Democratic California Rep. Barbara Lee said, the Times reported.
“It’s past time that we end the glorification of men who committed treason against the United States in a concerted effort to keep African-Americans in chains.”
Today I voted to remove confederate statues from the U.S. Capitol. The U.S. Capitol should be reserved for pieces of art that inspire and unite us as a nation.
— Rep. Chris Stewart (@RepChrisStewart) July 22, 2020
The legislation explicitly named five statues to be removed from the Capitol, and would require “all statues of individuals who voluntarily served” the Confederacy to be removed, the Times reported.
State leaders are the only leaders authorized by federal law to replace statues in the Capitol, and each state is permitted to have two statues displayed in the National Statuary Hall collection, the Times reported.
Though the legislation is unlikely to be put to a vote in the Senate, 72 House Republicans voted in favor of the bill, the Times reported.
“The history of this nation is so fraught with racial division, with hatred,” Republican Michigan Rep. Paul Mitchell said, the Times reported. “The only way to overcome that is to recognize that, acknowledge it for what it is.”
Republican Senate Majority Leader Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky said the move was “clearly a bridge too far” and an effort to “airbrush the Capitol,” the Times reported. McConnell said the states should decide what statues are displayed in the Capitol, however, he advocated a statue of Jefferson Davis be moved from the Kentucky State Capitol to a museum in 2015, according to the Times.
Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, had four portraits of former speakers removed from outside of the House chamber because they represented the Confederacy last month, the Times reported.
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Kaylee Greenlee is a reporter for the Daily Caller News Foundation.
Removing history is what they are doing. The Civil War was not about Slavery!
We will remove all that voted to remove the statues, those from the south, at least, from Congress!!!
Pandering to Communists! Never thought we would see this day in America. These Members Political class have no fealty to our Christian Republic or Honorable hard working Patriots who never had anything given to them, but struggled to make it!
This is a travesty.
Good riddance to Confederate icons! The Confederacy had nothing to do with supporting states’ rights; its agenda was to support the forcible extension of slavery into the free-soil territories and states, thus violating the states’ rights of free-soil areas.
yes and please remember they were all racist democrats. now lets remove the name democrat from our history
I suggest your read the papers from the Civil War era and the real history not the woke revisionist history of the divisive Communist left or even in our school history books.
The Civil War was not about Slavery!! The history the truth is still with us.
Your attitude represents the new wave of Carpetbaggers looking this time t pillage and rob the Country entire, with you owe me, you wronged me..and that is a lie. Go to Africa or Venezuela if you don’t’ like your fortune here. No one gave us anything, we were dirt poor and no one promised us an easy but poor life if we would just vote for them and keep voting for them.And what do the Communist promise you. I’m not give you a dime if I had it.