House passes bill to remove Confederate, racist statues and busts

A measure seeking to remove the bust of former Chief Justice Roger B. Taney — who wrote the majority opinion in the Supreme Court’s Dred Scott decision that said Black people were not U.S. citizens — along with racist and Confederate statues in the Capitol passed the House 305-113 Wednesday.

It is a legislative response to nationwide calls for statues that honor the country’s discriminatory past to be relocated from prominent locations.

The bill, introduced by House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer of Maryland, would direct the Architect of the Capitol to replace Taney’s bust with another Marylander: Thurgood Marshall, the first Black Supreme Court justice. It would also remove all statues of people who voluntarily served in the Confederacy. The Joint Committee on the Library of Congress, which has oversight of statues and art in the Capitol, would move to place Marshall’s bust in the Old Supreme Court Chamber within two years.