Democratic Senators are reviewing the inventory of 100 statues and a few flags in the U.S. Capitol to identify and remove anything representing the Confederacy, in the wake of the Charleston, S.C. shootings in an historic black church.
Each state sends two statues that are on display in the Capitol and adjoining Visitor’s Center, and Confederate President Jefferson Davis, sent from Mississippi, stands in bronze in Statuary Hall, on the second floor of the Capitol.
“I think that it would be important that we look at some of the statues that are here, not as a result of what the states have done, but what others do,” said Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev. “And we’re going to take a look at that. But other than that, I think that we need to make sure the states understand who they have here.”
In addition to Davis, there are a few other statues representing Confederate leaders, most notably General Robert E. Lee, who led the Confederate army. Lee’s bronze statue was commissioned by Virginia and sits in a first-floor Capitol room known as the Crypt.
But Reid pointed out that it is up to the states to decide which statues will stand. Many were sent here decades ago and are rarely switched out for more modern representatives.
Reid said he’d like to banish one of Nevada’s statues — a bronze likeness of Pat McCarran, a Democratic Senator who served from 1933 to 1954 and used his perch to crack down on Americans accused of participating in communist activity. The Las Vegas, Nev., airport is also named after McCarran.
“I think he should be put out to pasture someplace,” Reid said, adding, “The statue.”
Lawmakers are also discussing whether to leave in place the Mississippi flag, which includes the Confederate insignia and hangs in a few places around the U.S. Capitol.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., didn’t engage when reporters asked him about the statue inventory Tuesday. He wouldn’t say whether any potentially offensive statues should be removed, telling reporters, “I’m not aware of what we have and what we don’t have.”
But McConnell suggested Tuesday his home state should move a statue of Jefferson Davis from its capitol grounds in Frankfort.
He acknowledged that Davis was born in the Bluegrass State. But the connection ends there, McConnell said. Davis moved away, and Kentucky was never part of the Confederacy, having remained neutral during some of the Civil War before joining the Union.
“I think it’s appropriate certainly in Kentucky to be talking about the appropriateness of continuing to have Jefferson Davis’ statue in a very prominent place in our state capital,” McConnell said. “Maybe a better place for that would be the Kentucky History Museum, which is also in the state capital.”
McConnell and other Republican lawmakers on Monday swiftly backed a call by South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley to remove a confederate flag from the capitol grounds. The move came in the wake of a racially-motivated shooting that killed nine people in an historic black church in Charleston.
