The student painting depicting police as pigs won’t be returned to public display in the Capitol, a three-member board of House leaders determined Friday.
The House Office Building Commission voted to uphold a decision by the Capitol Architect to remove artwork produced by a student from the district of Rep. Lacy Clay, D-Mo., who represents Ferguson, the site of intense rioting over the police shooting of a young black man.
“This is now a closed matter,” a spokesperson for House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., said Friday.
It’s not a surprising vote. The commission is made up of only Ryan, R-Wis., Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., and a lone Democrat, Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.
Pelosi’s office confirmed later that she voted to keep the painting, but was outnumbered by Ryan and McCarthy. She requested the review after the architect removed the painting.
The painting was chosen by Clay’s office as a district winner in the Congressional Art Competition. After House Republicans last month repeatedly removed it from a wall linking an office building to the Capitol, Clay put it back up.
The architect ruled the painting had to go because it violated the art competition rules prohibiting art “depicting subjects of contemporary political controversy or a sensationalistic or gruesome nature.”
Ryan’s office noted the rule blocking the artwork was adopted in 2007 under Pelosi, who was speaker.
