Pelosi calls for removal of Confederate statues from Capitol halls

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is called for Confederate statues of soldiers and officers to be removed from the U.S. Capitol building. 

"The halls of Congress are the very heart of our democracy. The statues in the Capitol should embody our highest ideals as Americans, expressing who we are and who we aspire to be as a nation," wrote Pelosi in a letter to the Joint Committee on the Library. 

The speaker pointed out that statues of Jefferson Davis and Alexander Stephens, the president and vice president of the Confederate States, are displayed in the National Statuary Hall in the Capitol. Both men were charged with treason against the United States.

"Monuments to men who advocated cruelty and barbarism to achieve such a plainly racist end are a grotesque affront to these ideals. Their statues pay homage to hate, not heritage. They must be removed," wrote Pelosi, a California Democrat.

Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.), the vice chairperson of the Library committee, said she agrees that the "symbols of cruelty and bigotry," should be removed from the halls of the Capitol.

This is not the first time Pelosi has attempted to rid the Capitol halls of Confederate statues. In 2017, she appealed to then-House Speaker Paul Ryan, who argued that the decision to remove the statues should be up to the states that placed them there. 

Statuary Hall allows each state to place two statues in the hall, and, as of the year 2000, also allows states to replace their sculptures, if they so choose.

The chairman of the Joint Committee on the Library, Roy Blunt (R-Missouri), responded to Pelosi's letter by saying, "As Speaker Pelosi is undoubtedly aware, the law does not permit the Architect of the Capitol or the Joint Committee of Congress on the Library to remove a statue from the Capitol once it has been received."

"Several states have moved toward replacing statues and others appear headed in the same direction. This process is ongoing and encouraging," Blunt told Fox News on Wednesday.