WASHINGTON _ Speaker Paul D. Ryan is siding with his party and wants the painting of police-community relations in Ferguson, Mo., that depicts police officers as animals to be taken down.
"This is disgusting and it's not befitting the Capitol," Ryan said on the "Mike Gallagher Show" on Thursday. He added that "this isn't a question of First Amendment rights."
Missouri Democrat William Lacy Clay sponsored the painting and has consistently fought for it. He teamed up with Maryland freshman Jamie Raskin on Wednesday to send a letter asking Ryan to keep it in the competition.
The painting has been taken down by four different Republican members on three separate occasions over the past week and taken to Clay's office. Clay has returned it every time to where it hangs in the tunnel between the Cannon House Office Building and the Capitol.
Ryan said: "We govern what paintings can go up here. This one slipped by for some reason."
"This is not a free-for-all in a contest where anything goes in the Capitol. ... This does not fit the rules, so we are processing this decision right now," he added.
Washington Republican Rep. Dave Reichert, a former sheriff, sent a letter on Wednesday asking Architect of the Capitol Stephen Ayers to review the piece, saying that it violated the rules of the competition, pointing to a passage in the rules that prohibits "exhibits depicting subjects of contemporary political controversy or a sensationalistic or gruesome nature."
"The artwork's depiction of law enforcement as animals shooting citizens is both sensationalistic and gruesome in nature," Reichert wrote.
"While it is not my desire to censor individuals' freedom of speech and expression, we are a nation of laws and rules and our rights are only as secure as the institutions built to enforce those laws," Reichert's letter reads.
