Jun 11, 2020 - Politics & Policy

McConnell says it's up to states to remove Confederate statues in the Capitol

Ursula Perano

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) told reporters on Thursday that it should be left up to the states to decide whether to keep or remove their Confederate statues in the Capitol building.

Why it matters: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi sent a letter to the Joint Committee on the Library's leadership on Wednesday asking that they "immediately take steps" to remove 11 Confederate monuments from the Capitol's National Statuary Hall collection, as a nationwide movement against Confederate iconography continues in the wake of anti-racism protests.

McConnell noted that every state is allowed two statues and that it's up to them whether to trade them out: "I think the appropriate way to deal with this issue is to stick with the tradition."
"A number of states are trading them out now, but I think that’s the appropriate way to deal with the statue issue," he added. "The states make that decision."

Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), who chairs the Library Committee, told reporters on Thursday that Congress would have to change the law in order to control what statues states show in the Capitol, per Politico.

"The Congress could change any law they want to. If they want to change a law and say, 'No we’re now going to decide what statues states can have,' they can certainly do that," he said.
"There’s no authority to move statues out of the Capitol short of that."

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McConnell says it's up to states to remove Confederate statues in the Capitol

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