BATON ROUGE (AP) — All three Republicans in Louisiana's race for governor say they're against moving Confederate monuments in New Orleans, while the one Democrat says the question should be left to city officials.
A city commission has recommended moving four monuments, including the statue of Robert E. Lee atop a column in Lee Circle.
"I don't know why candidates for governor would want to inject themselves into this issue," Democrat John Bel Edwards told The New Orleans Advocate’s Will Sentell on Friday.
In a press release Friday, Republican Public Service Commissioner Scott Angelle called the proposal to remove the monuments out-of-bounds political correctness.
"I can't believe that we are now at a point where we are trying to rewrite history to appease a few and do good for none," he wrote. "This insults the intelligence of most Louisianans."
In addition to the statue of Lee, they include of Confederate President Jefferson Davis and General P.G.T Beauregard, and an obelisk known as the white power monument.
The statues should remain because they're part of history, Republican Lt. Gov. Jay Dardenne said in a telephone interview.
"I don't think we ought to be tearing down monuments that are part of the landscape of New Orleans," he said.
Spokesman Luke Bolar said U.S. Sen. David Vitter also feels the monuments should remain.
Earlier in the week Vitter wrote a letter advising Democratic Mayor Mitch Landrieu to focus on the city's murder rate, rather than monuments.
A city ordinance lets the City Council remove public statues that celebrate racist ideologies or are likely to be the site of violent protests.
Landrieu, a Democrat, called for removing the monuments after white supremacist Dylann Roof was charged with killing nine black parishioners in a church in Charleston, South Carolina.
Edwards, like Lee and Davis, is a graduate of the West Point Military Academy.
"History is history," he said. "We certainly shouldn't forget it. We can't rewrite it. But I leave it up to the sound judgment down there (New Orleans) as to what they are going to do."
