Franklinton legislator files bill in regular session to protect Confederate monuments

14th March 2016   ·   0 Comments

With most eyes in the state capitol focused on Louisiana’s budgetary shortfall during the special legislative session that wrapped up last week, a Franklinton, La. legislator filed a bill on March 4 that would prevent local governments in the state from removing Confederate monuments and other commemorative statues without state approval, The Advocate reported recently.

The bill, Senate Bill 276, won’t be discussed until the regular session starts on March 14 and could potentially impact efforts in New Orleans to remove four Confederate-era monuments from public spaces. If passed, the bill would pave the way for the formation of a statewide commission to regulate the removal or changes made to public memorials to a “historic conflict, historic entity, historic event, historic figure or historic organization.”

The description of what monuments would be shielded from being removed or altered in any way by local governments would apply to all four of the monuments the New Orleans City Council voted in December to remove from public spaces.

Supporters of the Confederate-era monuments have tried unsuccessfully to block the removal of the monuments in federal and civil district court over the past three months. Other tactics used to block the monuments include death threats being issued to a Baton Rouge-based contractor and his wife, which prompted the company president to back out of the statue-removal project, and a phone campaign by a group called Save Our Circle that has encouraged supporters of the monuments to call prospective contractors to discourage them from taking on the project.

Since it learned that the group was using the city’s website to gain contact information on prospective contractors, the Landrieu administration has made changes to shield contractors from harassment.

Senate Bill 276 would create the Louisiana Heritage Protection Commission, which would include appointees of the House speaker and Senate president and the secretary of Louisiana’s Department of Culture, Recreation and Tourism.

The bill was filed by Sen. Beth Mizell, R-Franklinton.

The bill, seen by some as a last-ditch effort to block the removal of monuments many in New Orleans and other parts of the state say are racially offensive and a nuisance, might be too late to actually block the removal of the four monuments in the Crescent City.

The City of New Orleans has set a bid deadline for April 22 and hopes to remove the monuments sometime this spring. If the bill passes, the newly formed commission would be required to meet on or before Sept. 15.

A similar battle appears to be looming on the horizon in Lafayette, La., where some of that city’s residents are seeking to remove a monument of Confederate Gen. Alfred Mouton.

Even if Mizell’s bill is intended to block New Orleans’ planned actions, the city maintains that “it is well within its rights to manage its own property. When challenged, this fact has been upheld in federal, state and local courts,” Landrieu press secretary Hayne Rainey told The Advocate.

After U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier and Civil District Court Judge Piper Griffin ruled in favor of the City of New Orleans, the groups seeking to block the removal of the monuments filed notices of appeal and said they plan to continue to challenge the City’s legal right to remove the monuments.

One of the groups opposed to the removal of the monuments, the Monumental Task Force, offered praise of Sen. Mizell’s bill.

“We are pleased to see that this Legislature is considering methods to restrict the removal of these historical monuments, a step that has already been taken by many of our neighboring states,” the group said in a statement on March 4.

“We are excited about the possibilities that we can achieve with the help of our collaborators and supporters, including Sen. Mizell and the Louisiana Heritage Protection Commission.”

A city attorney told Judge Barbier in January that Baton Rouge-based H&O Investments backed out of the statue-removal contract after its owner and his wife received death threats and some of its clients threatened to cancel their contracts with the company if it carried out the statue-removal project. Days later, the owner’s Lamborghini was burned while it sat in the company’s parking lot overnight. It has not been determined whether or not the destruction of the car was connected in any way to the Confederate monuments project.

A female business owner told Nola.om in a recent story that she had been contacted by supporters of the Confederate monuments and told that she would be put out of business if she took on the statue-removal project. The business owner added that she only downloaded information about the bidding specifications for the project out of curiosity and had never intended to pursue the contract.

Community activists in New Orleans have said that the four monuments in question are but the tip of the iceberg when it comes to racially offensive monuments and landmarks throughout the city. As an example, they pointed to the statue of Andrew Jackson in the French Quarter’s Jackson Square, where the heads of enslaved Africans were displayed after the 1811 slave revolt, the largest slave uprising in U.S. history. They also pointed to streets like Claiborne Avenue, Jackson Avenue, Napoleon Avenue and Robert E. Lee Blvd.

This article originally published in the March 14, 2016 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.