SENATE STATE GOVERNMENT, WAGERING, TOURISM & HISTORIC PRESERVATION COMMITTEE

STATEMENT TO

SENATE, No. 1369

STATE OF NEW JERSEY

DATED:  FEBRUARY 10, 2020

      The Senate State Government, Wagering, Tourism and Historic Preservation Committee reports favorably Senate Bill No. 1369.

      The purpose of this bill is to request that the New Jersey statue of Philip Kearney in the National Statuary Hall Collection at the United States Capitol be replaced with a statue of Alice Paul.

      Alice Paul was a women’s rights activist, suffragist, and principal leader of the early 1900’s campaign for the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.  She was born on January 11, 1885, in Moorestown, New Jersey.  Alice Paul was instrumental in the passage and ratification in 1920 of the Nineteenth Amendment, which prohibited denying any citizen the right to vote on the basis of sex.

      The bill enables the State, following the procedure established in federal law, to formally ask the Joint Committee on the Library of Congress to approve the replacement of the statue of Philip Kearney the State had provided for display in the National Statuary Hall Collection.  If approved by the Joint Committee, the new statue would be one of Alice Paul.

      The bill establishes a temporary, bi-partisan, seven-member committee composed of:

      (1)  four members appointed by the Governor, two each upon recommendation of the Senate President and the Speaker of the General Assembly;

      (2)  the Secretary of State, or a designee thereof; and

      (3)  two members appointed by the Governor.

      The committee will select a sculptor for the statue and determine how to fund its completion and transportation to the United States Capitol.