House Votes to Remove Confederate Statues at Capitol

The House of Representatives on Tuesday voted 285-120 to remove Confederate statues from the US Capitol. Democrats voted unanimously for HR 3005, and 67 Republicans joined them, the AP reports. A statue of Jefferson Davis, president of the Confederacy, stands in Statuary Hall, and outside the Old Supreme Court Chamber sits a bust of Roger Taney, the chief justice who authored the Dred Scott decision, NPR reports. Three other white supremacists' statues would also be removed under the legislation: Charles Brantley Aycock, John Caldwell Calhoun, and James Paul Clarke.

The bill now heads to the Senate, where Democrats would once again need to be unanimous in their support and joined by 10 Republicans in order for it to pass, USA Today reports. If it does, statues must be removed within 45 days of the enactment and returned to the states from which they came, which may choose to replace them with other honorees. Taney's bust, however, already has a replacement lined up: Thurgood Marshall, the first Black justice to serve on the Supreme Court. (More Confederate statues stories.)