House Votes to Remove Capitol’s Confederate Busts: Protest Wrap

Trump Challenges Mayors on Crime; Chicago Shooting: Protest Wrap

Bloomberg News

23 Jul 2020, 04:55 PM IST

(Bloomberg) -- The U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill that would remove statues and busts in the Capitol that honor individuals associated with slavery, the Confederacy and White supremacy. The measure, passed on a 305-113 vote, would also commission a bust of Thurgood Marshall, the first Black Supreme Court justice, to replace one of Roger Taney, author of a key Supreme Court decision backing slavery. Every Democrat voted in favor while Republicans split on the issue, 72 for and 113 against.

The Trump administration may reverse a federal rule that promotes fair housing and sets desegregation as a national priority. Politico reports the White House plans to replace the existing rule that required local governments to track patterns of poverty and segregation with a much weaker one, which would essentially rely on those localities self-certifying. The rule would be considered “final,” Politico wrote.

President Donald Trump said he will expand a federal law enforcement operation to Chicago and Albuquerque, New Mexico, to address rising crime. The move sets up a showdown with state and local leaders, who have warned they will resist attempts to deploy federal agents in the way the administration did in Portland, Oregon. There, officers from the Department of Homeland Security have violently clashed with protesters.

Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot said she spoke to Trump and federal resources will be investigatory in nature. New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said he talked to Trump on Tuesday and said the state does not need federal agents to keep crime under control. “We left the conversation that if the president had any additional concerns, we would talk before he took any action,” Cuomo said.

In a joint letter, more than a dozen mayors said the administration’s “deployment of federal forces in the streets of our communities has not been requested, nor is it acceptable.” The group includes Lightfoot as well as Portland’s Ted Wheeler, Muriel Bowser in Washington D.C., Keisha Lance Bottoms in Atlanta, Jenny Durkan in Seattle and Marty Walsh in Boston. In a separate letter, they called for a congressional investigation.

Chad Wolf, the acting DHS secretary, defended the department’s actions and said his “officers are not ‘paramilitary.’ They are civilian law enforcement doing their job — enforcing federal law.” His tweet of the same, over a photo of officers in green camouflage, helmets, gas masks and armed with high-powered weapons, drew almost 6,000 replies, most of them scornful.

In Portland, Oregon, Mayor Ted Wheeler received what the Oregonian newspaper described as a “hostile” greeting, including profanities chanted at him, as he arrived at the nightly protest. Wheeler, who hasn’t gone as far as protesters want in his responses, told the crowd he had come to stand alongside them in the face of the federal response. “So if they’re launching the tear gas against you, they’re launching the tear gas against me,” he said, according to the Oregonian.

Later in the night, Wheeler was among those tear gassed by federal agents, AP reported, as violent clashes reignited in the city.

Key Developments:

See more from Bloomberg’s QuickTake:

Trump says under Operation Legend, his administration will also soon send federal law enforcement to Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Polls show a majority of voters sympathize with protesters:

New York Mayor Bill de Blasio threatens legal action:

St. Louis couple charged after pointing guns at demonstrators:

With assistance from Bloomberg