Hoyer Discusses Legislation to Remove Hate, Efforts to Construct a New, Consolidated FBI Headquarters on "The Joe Madison Show"
WASHINGTON, DC – This morning, Congressman Steny H. Hoyer (MD-05) joined Joe Madison on "The Joe Madison Show" to discuss his legislation to remove the bust of Roger Brooke Taney and other symbols of slavery and sedition from the United States Capitol, as well as efforts to construct a new, consolidated FBI Headquarters in Maryland. Below are excerpts of his remarks and a link to the audio:
To listen to the audio, click here.
On Legislation to Remove Hate from the U.S. Capitol
"Roger Brooke Taney was a very prominent citizen of Maryland, and as you point out, at a number of very high positions, and was Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. Roger Brooke Taney wrote what was arguably one of the worst decisions the Supreme Court has ever issued: the Dred Scott decision, and essentially concluded that African Americans…were not entitled to be considered as full human beings, just a terrible decision."
"…Jim Clyburn and I, and Joyce Beatty, the Chairwoman of the CBC, and so many other Members of the Congress of the United States, as matter of fact, unanimously on the Democratic side - and about a third of the Republicans - voted to pass a bill that said, we want to take his bust out of a place of honor outside the old Supreme Court, because we do not want to honor those who pursued slavery, segregation, and sedition…And we passed that overwhelmingly, as I said, every Democrat voted for it and one third of the Republicans voted for it, 67 Republicans. [The bill] is now in the Senate. It's been in the Senate for some time and we wrote a letter on August 12th of this year, just a little over a month ago, almost a month ago, saying to the Senate: please take this up, please pass it. Not only does it include Roger Brooke Taney, but it includes about 13 other segregationist and people who have fought on behalf of the Confederacy against the Federal Union. To honor them is seems to us to be inappropriate and so we're hopeful that the Senate will act."
"I'm hopeful that the Senate will bring this up either under a procedure for unanimous consent, it ought to be unanimous consent…but it just inappropriate in the temple of democracy, in the temple of a nation which said that we believe that all men, and clearly we would say women at this point in time are created equal, that [in this] temple we should not have honored and be honoring people who undermine that very premise of America…The legislation also provides that we would replace it with a bust of Thurgood Marshall, the first African American to sit on the Supreme Court of the United States and a great leader of the Civil Rights movement. And the interesting thing, Taney was a Marylander, Marshall is Marylander...We just think that the Senate needs to take this up and pass it so that we do not have African American visitors coming to the Capitol of the United States, this temple of democracy and being confronted with a statue that honors someone who said they were less than human, less than citizens who are white. And we just think this is a statement that we ought to pursue."
On Efforts to Construct a New, Consolidated FBI Headquarters in Maryland
"Well, I think jobs, obviously, and the FBI, a prestigious law enforcement agency, but one of the issues that you say, a number of people have raised in our state is that Prince George's County has got 4% of the [federal] office space in the Washington Metropolitan Area, far less than any other jurisdiction in the Washington Metropolitan [area], but we have 48% of the [federal] warehouse space in Prince George's County. Now, you know, we're not a warehouse county… And we have a back 20% of the employees of the federal government who live in Prince George's County and for us to only have 4% of the [federal] office space when some others have 15% or more, is just not right and what they're raising is the President has articulated policy of… lifting up communities that have been ignored [by] decisions in the federal government, and [this is] one of the ways they can do that…some of our, Angela Alsobrooks, who is the County Executive, Adrienne Jones, is the Speaker of our House, and [Reps.] Anthony Brown, Kweisi Mfume, and others raised the point that this is an opportunity for the administration to cite something that will help a community of color and also help the economy of that county and is consistent with their policies. In addition, from my perspective, it's also a good way to make sure that we develop around Metro sites. So that there are a lot of reasons why we think the FBI - you know, the building is a it's falling down, it's in terrible, terrible shape. But it's also very vulnerable to attack because it's right on Pennsylvania Avenue and for years, the FBI has wanted a campus setting where they can have the setbacks that will meet the security requirements of the federal government. So that's what that letter was about and pursuing."