Bill that could force Pensacola to reinstall its Confederate monument clears 1st hurdle
Four days after the city of Pensacola won the lawsuit challenging the removal of its Confederate monument, a bill that would force the cities across Florida to restore removed monuments cleared a key vote on a House committee.
The House State Affairs Committee approved a bill (HB 395) in a party-line vote Tuesday that puts all "historic monuments and memorials" older than 25 years under state jurisdiction and prohibits their removal. The bill also requires any municipality that has removed a monument since 2017 to restore it.
Under the bill, officials involved in a protected monument's removal may be punished with personal fines or even removed from office.
Any monuments damaged or destroyed in the removal process must be replaced by the local government, and if the local government can't afford it, the state will cover the costs and withhold "all arts, cultural, and historic preservation funding" until the local government repays it.
The bill also changes the law to allow groups who claim to regularly use the monument for "memorial or remembrance" to have standing to sue in state court.
A similar version of the bill is advancing in the Florida Senate, but it is only applied to monuments removed since Oct. 1, 2020.
Rep. Dean Black, R-Jacksonville, is sponsoring the House version of the bill, and he said Tuesday that the bill was about preserving history.
"History belongs to all of us," Black said. "We need to learn good and bad from everyone. If we were to allow monuments to simply be purged from the land, then the day would come when people would say the things commemorated there never happened."
Democrats in the House committee attempted to add several amendments that would've altered the bill to not apply to Confederate monuments specifically, including an amendment that would've exempted monuments honoring former slaveholders from state protection. All of the amendments were defeated by the majority Republican committee.
"We see these monuments are the first participation trophies, and they were used to intimidate Black people," Rep. Ashley Gantt, D-Miami, said. "And we know that. And the rhetoric of saying 'factual history' and 'all Floridians own history,' well, how about we look at the standards that are trying to teach little Black children that Black people benefit from slavery? How about we talk about factual history right there? When that is actual state violence against children in the classroom that they are helpless to defend themselves."
The bill has two more committee stops before being voted on by the entire House.
In the last few years, several Florida cities have removed Confederate monuments erected on public land. Jacksonville is the most recent example, with Jacksonville Mayor Donna Deegan ordering the removal of the 109-year-old “Tribute to the Women of the Southern Confederacy” monument in December.
Pensacola removed its Confederate monument in October 2020 and has been involved in a legal battle over its removal.
On Friday, an Escambia Circuit Court judge ruled the group suing the city failed to prove they had standing to sue to challenge the monument's removal.
The ruling: Pensacola wins Confederate monument lawsuit, statue will stay down
Pensacola Mayor D.C. Reeves, who took office in 2022, said on Tuesday said didn't have a comment on the city winning the lawsuit.
"I'm staying hyper-focused on all of these things that are affecting us day-to-day," Reeves said. "Certainly, yes, I'm aware of the result of (the lawsuit) from late last week, but I'm staying focused on stuff that's impacting the city."
The decision to remove the monument was made in the previous administration and approved by the City Council.
Reeves said he's not had any conversations about how the bill would impact the city if passed.
"There's several things that are being talked about Tallahassee that will affect us right now that we're kind of in a little bit of a wait and see approach," Reeves said. "So of course, if the state preempts us to do something, we'll adhere to that rule, but there's not a whole lot we can do at this point."
This article originally appeared on Pensacola News Journal: Confederate monument restoration bill HB 395 applies to Pensacola
