House votes to remove Confederate statues and replace Roger B. Taney bust

The House passed a resolution Tuesday to expel Confederate statues from the US Capitol and replace its bust of Roger B. Taney, the chief justice who wrote the Dred Scott decision, with one honoring Thurgood Marshall, the first African American Supreme Court justice.

The vote was 285 to 120. Sixty-seven Republicans voted with 218 Democrats in support of the bill.

The House passed a similar resolution last year on a bipartisan basis but it stalled after Republicans in the Senate argued that the states should decide which statues they'd like to display in the Capitol. The legislation has a better chance to pass now that Democrats hold the Senate majority.

The mass protests following George Floyd's death last year under the knee of former police officer Derek Chauvin renewed the effort in Congress to remove the statues. Chauvin was sentenced last week to over 22 years in prison.