U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said Kentucky needs to remove a statue of Confederate President Jefferson Davis from the state Capitol's rotunda.
McConnell said Davis' only connection to Kentucky is he was born there. Davis later moved to Mississippi, and Kentucky never officially joined the confederacy. McConnell suggested a better place for the statue would be at the Kentucky History Museum in Frankfort.
For nearly 80 years the Davis Statue has shared space in the Capitol Rotunda with other famous Kentuckians including Abraham Lincoln, Henry Clay, and Alben Barkley, but former Kentucky Treasurer Jonathan Miller told WLEX TV he’s long believed that the Davis Statue has no place on government property.
Kentucky's Republican nominee for governor, Matt Bevin, and the Republican president of the state Senate, Robert Stivers, have also said the statue should be removed.
Democratic gubernatorial nominee Jack Conway has joined the effort to remove the Jefferson Davis statue.
Conway said Wednesday the sculpture of the Confederate leader and Kentucky native belongs in a history museum, not the Capitol.
A day earlier, Conway told reporters he would "have to chew on that one a little bit" when asked about the Davis statue.
Conway said Wednesday he had spoken with black leaders about the statue.
Leaders in states across the country have taken steps to remove Confederate symbols following the shooting deaths of nine black people in a South Carolina church last week. A 21-year-old white man has been charged with the murders.