George Floyd Death: US lawmakers introduce bill to remove Confederate statues from Capitol

Two senior members of the Congressional Black Caucus on Thursday, June 11 proposed a bill to remove the Confederate statues from the Capitol following nationwide protests against police brutality and racism discrimination in the wake of George Floyd's tragic death in police custody.

Representative Barbara Lee (D-Calif.) and Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) introduced the bill a day after Speaker Nancy Pelosi called for removing Confederate statues from the Capitol complex. 

Lee in her statement said, "Americans in all 50 states and millions of people around the world are marching to protest racism and police violence directed at people of color, and yet across the country, Confederate statues and monuments still pay tribute to white supremacy and slavery in public spaces".

California leader further affirmed that “It is time to tell the truth about what these statues are -- hateful symbols that have no place in our society and certainly should not be enshrined in the US Capitol.”

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The Capitol complex has 11 statues of people who served in the Confederacy, either as officials or soldiers. All the statues are a part of the National Statuary Hall collection. Each of the 50 states will be contributing two statues to the collection and can be replaced if the governors approve the change.

The legislation from Democrats seeks the removal of all of the Confederate statues in the collection within 120 days. The statues could either be reclaimed by the states or given to the Smithsonian.

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Barbara Lee had earlier introduced the bill in 2017 following the violence at a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville. However, her efforts did not lead to the removal of the Capitol's Confederate statues as the Republicans still controlled both chambers of Congress.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Wednesday demanded Senate Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) and Representative Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.), the chairman and vice chairwoman of the Joint Committee on the Library, which supervises the placement of statues, to remove the statues.

In her previous tenure, Pelosi had moved a statue of Robert Lee, the Confederate army commander, from a prominent place in Statuary Hall and shifted it to a floor below in a room known as the Capitol Crypt.

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