A Maryland state senator wants the chamber to censure Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller over remarks about Roger Taney.
A monument to the late U.S. Supreme Court justice, who wrote the 1857 Dred Scott decision that upheld slavery and denied citizenship to African Americans, was removed Friday from the Maryland State House grounds in Annapolis.
Miller criticized the removal of the statue without a public meeting beforehand. In a letter to Gov. Larry Hogan, Miller noted the "inflammatory and derogatory language and holding" of the Dred Scott decision, but also stressed Taney's "prior anti-slavery words and actions."
Democratic Sen. C. Anthony Muse says the chamber should rebuke Miller's remarks and those expressed by others "who would defend what Justice Taney stood for."
Miller's spokesman declined to comment.