Texas Senate Passes Bill To Protect Controversial Monuments

It's a move that will upset some, while others will be glad to see some of the nation's history is being protected.

Maybe protected isn't the word. The Texas Senate has however made it harder to take down controversial monuments with the passing of Senate Bill 1663.

According to the bill, city councils, commissioners courts, and local government bodies would all need a two-thirds majority to remove or alter any monument 25 years or older. It would also require a two-thirds vote of BOTH the Texas House and Senate to remove such a monument on state property like a state university campus.

Sen. Brandon Creighton, R-Conroe told the Dallas Morning News that, "We've seen a trend across the nation and the world where controversial monuments are removed and destroyed. I fear that we'll look back and regret that this was a period where deleting history was more important than learning from it."

This was a sticking point in 2017 after confederate memorials got removed from Travis Park in San Antonio and caused a bitter stand-off between groups wanting the monuments removed and groups like the Daughters of the Texas Confederacy who wanted the history of the monument preserved.