Florida House moves to ban removal of Confederate monuments again

Critics contend the effort is primarily directed at preserving monuments supporting the Confederacy.

Reading from the bill he co-sponsored, Seminole Republican Rep. Berny Jacques, who is Black, said, “an accurate and factual history belongs to all Floridians and future generations and that the state has an obligation to protect and preserve such history.”

As for the 25-year mark, Jacques said that is a sign any monument “is a fixture of the community.”

A similar measure in the Senate (SB 496) has yet to appear before a committee.

Miami Democratic Rep. Wallace Aristide said the bill doesn’t work for his community, which has a large African-American contingent.

“We should get away from things that take us to a very negative place in history in this country,” Aristide said.

Similar efforts to supersede local government authority on monuments and memorials failed after appearing before committees in the 2023 and 2024 sessions.

The proposal was first introduced after numerous controversies in recent years in Florida and other states about removing historic markers. Many of the targeted monuments honored members of the Confederacy and are considered a product of the “Jim Crow” system in the late 19th and early 20th centuries where racial segregation and discrimination laws and policies were directed against African Americans.

One of the more controversial monument removals occurred in 2023 when Jacksonville Mayor Donna Deegan ordered the city to take down the “Women of the Southland” monument, which stood as a tribute to the Confederacy since 1915.

The 2024 legislative effort was scuttled after Republican lawmakers criticized supporters speaking on behalf of the proposal who cited a need to protect “white culture” and “white supremacy.”

Rep. Daryl Campbell, D-Fort Lauderdale, said the bill is back because some lawmakers believe people have forgotten about the 2024 session.

“Let’s be clear, it wasn’t too long ago that this same bill was up in the Senate and we had people who are Nazis, people who were white supremacists, that came in and said this bill stands up for them,” Campbell said. 

Rep. Paula Stark, R-St. Cloud, said the bill isn’t about the Civil War, but preserving monuments in general.

“In the past decade we’ve had all kinds of reports of various statues and memorials being moved, removed and denigrated and those are not the things we should be standing for,” Stark said. “We should be standing for teaching our future generations the good, the bad, the ugly. That’s how we move forward as a society. And we get to do that on our own terms.”

The bill defines as historic markers any permanent statue, marker, plaque, flag, banner, cenotaph, religious symbol, painting, seal, tombstone, or display put up on public property for at least 25 years and depicts a person, place, or event considered significant in state history.

The bill would direct courts to invalidate local ordinances on the removal of memorials and allow civil fines of up to $1,000 to be imposed on officials that allow the markers to be removed or damaged. It also would allow civil lawsuits against local governments and officials, with a cap of $100,000 in damages.

Also, a local government could temporarily remove a memorial for military necessity, construction or infrastructure. In those cases, the temporary locations would have to provide similar visibility and public access.