WASHINGTON_The fight over Confederate statues is coming to the U.S. Capitol.
The marbled halls have long been home to memorials for leaders of the Confederacy, and opposition to them has flared from time to time.
But now, in the aftermath of deadly violence in Charlottesville, Va., and President Donald Trump's defense of what many see as nods to the country's segregated and slave-holding past, some lawmakers want them out.
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., on Thursday called on Speaker Paul D. Ryan, R-Wis., to start the process for their removal.
"The Confederate statues in the halls of Congress have always been reprehensible," said Pelosi.
"If Republicans are serious about rejecting white supremacy, I call upon Speaker Ryan to join Democrats to remove the Confederate statues from the Capitol immediately."
A day earlier, Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., announced he would file legislation to have the Confederate statues removed.
Ryan's office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Removing the statues could allow Republicans in Congress to distance themselves from their uneasy relationship with Trump on the issue of race.
Republicans in Congress often tried to ignore Trump's impolitic outbursts because they must rely on him to help advance their legislative agenda into law.
But Trump's call for keeping Confederate statues in communities around the country_he tweeted Thursday that the nation's culture is being "ripped apart" by their removal_after he had blamed "both sides" for the violence in Charlottesville, is forcing Republicans to respond.
Moving statues out of the Capitol may be politically easier for Republicans to consider than demands that they censure Trump himself.
Every state sends two statues to the Capitol's corridors, including its stately Statuary Hall. Most of the statues represent noted historical figures.
California sent Ronald Reagan and Father Junipero Serra, Oklahoma has Will Rogers, Hawaii has among the most ornate towering figures, King Kamehmeha I.
No state has sent a statue of a black. Congress has tried to remedy that in recent years by having statues of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., Frederick Douglass and others installed.
One analysis showed there are three times as many statues of Confederates as there are of black Americans in the Capitol halls, according to The Washington Post.
When Pelosi was House speaker, from 2007 to 2011, the Democratic-led Congress relocated Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee's statue from the hall and one of civil rights heroine Rosa Parks now has the spot.
"There is no room for celebrating the violent bigotry of the men of the Confederacy in the hallowed halls of the United States Capitol or in places of honor across the country," Pelosi said.
