Mitch McConnell to Kentucky Capitol: Lose the Jefferson Davis Statue

Confederate president Jefferson Davis is memorialized in the South through myriad monuments and statues. He’s inside the Capitol’s marbled Statuary Hall. His “White House” is open to tourists in Richmond. And there’s a highway in South Carolina named for him.

But at a press conference on Tuesday, in the midst of a national debate over the propriety of Confederate images, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell identified one place where Davis shouldn’t be: the Capitol building in his home state of Kentucky. A statue of Davis stands alongside former President Abraham Lincoln–his Civil War adversary–and other Kentucky-born leaders.

{snip} According to reporters at the news conference, McConnell said that a “more appropriate” location for the Davis statue would be a state museum. This week, McConnell expressed support for South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley’s call to remove the Confederate flag from the statehouse grounds in Columbia.

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Also Tuesday, Minority Leader Harry Reid said the mascot and nickname of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas–the Runnin’ Rebels–should be reconsidered by the school’s Board of Regents. The school is well aware of its branding’s ties to the Confederacy.