Statuary Hall in the U.S. Capitol/Flickr
By Ronald J. Hansen | Arizona Republic
Three of Arizona’s four House Republicans voted Tuesday against banning Confederate statues from the U.S. Capitol in an issue shaped by the Jan. 6 riot and GOP pushback on discussing systemic racism.
Reps. Andy Biggs, Paul Gosar and Debbie Lesko were among the 120 Republicans who opposed a bill that the House of Representatives passed 285-120.
Rep. David Schweikert, R-Ariz., was one of the 67 Republicans who voted with nearly all House Democrats to direct officials at the Capitol to remove statues of three supporters of racial division.
It also would swap a bust of former Supreme Court Chief Justice Roger Taney, who wrote the 1857 Dred Scott opinion declaring people of African descent were not U.S. citizens, with one of former Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, who was the first Black justice on the high court.
The measure, similar to one that passed the House by an even wider margin last year, heads to the Senate, where it could require a 60-vote supermajority that includes 10 Republicans to be considered. Last year’s bill failed to move in the Senate, which was in Republican control at the time.
Rep. Ann Kirkpatrick, D-Ariz., called the vote an easy one
