Lesko, Biggs, Gosar call for protections of monuments in United States
Jul 19, 2020, 4:30 AM | Updated: 5:04 pm
(AP Photo/Angie Wang, File)
PHOENIX — Following President Donald Trump’s executive order to protect monuments in the United States, three Arizona Republican Congressmembers sponsored a bill with similar language that was introduced Thursday.
“The ongoing violence in our nation is abhorrent and the deliberate destruction of our nation’s history cannot be tolerated,” Congresswoman Debbie Lesko said in a statement.
“The president took decisive action to protect our nation’s monuments, memorials, and statues, and this legislation will build upon that action to give its provisions the full strength of law.”
Trump’s order set a priority in following a section of the United States Code that authorizes up to 10 years in prison for the vandalization of federal property.
Lesko, Andy Biggs and Paul Gosar are among 19 congressmembers who introduced the bill, which calls for the prosecution of those who harm monuments, memorials and statues, and the withholding of grants and federal funding from agencies that fail to protect them.
In the wake of the George Floyd killing at the hands of police, activists have called for the removal of statues and monuments that honor Confederate soldiers and other slaveholders.
There are eight Confederate monuments and markers in Arizona, according to the Copper Courier.
The most prominent one, at Wesley Bolin Plaza outside the Capitol building in Phoenix, was given to the state by the United Daughters of the Confederacy in 1961.
There is also a street named after Confederate Army commander Robert E. Lee and a highway marker named after Jefferson Davis, the president of the Confederacy.