Of the 200 statues at the U.S. Capitol, 14 are of women; RBG and Sandra Day O’Connor will soon join the ranks

Sandra Day O’Connor and Ruth Bader Ginsburg — the first women to sit on the highest court in the country — are joining the relatively short list of women memorialized as sculptures at the U.S. Capitol. Bipartisan legislation to add statues of the two Supreme Court justices to the Capitol was spearheaded by women lawmakers, passed the Senate last December, passed the House at the end of March and signed by President Joe Biden on Wednesday.

“Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sandra Day O’Connor were trailblazers long before reaching the Supreme Court, opening doors for women at a time when so many insisted on keeping them closed,” Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, a Democrat who introduced the legislation, told The 19th, after the bill was signed. “The Capitol is our most recognizable symbol of democracy, a place where people from across our country have their voices represented and heard. It is only fitting that we honor their remarkable lives and service to our country by establishing statues in the Capitol.”

Klobuchar said she was able to pass the news on to O’Connor’s son and Ginsburg’s daughter and looks forward to “welcoming them to the Capitol” to see their mothers’ lives commemorated. As it stands, only 14 of the more than 200 statues on the Capitol grounds are women, she added.