Panel OKs erasing Confederate flag from Senate seal

But Thursday the Senate rules committee unanimously agreed to replace the confederate one with the current state flag. Sen.

The Senate Rules Committees recommendation, which follows a request by Senate President Andy Gardiner and Senate Minority Leader Arthenia Joyner to re-examine the flags place on the seal, is another sign of a backlash against the symbols of the Souths rebellion in the 1860s. “But the interest was heightened, of course, by what happened in South Carolina”.

Separate legislation, which would require the removal of the Confederate flag from all government buildings, is also filed for the 2016 session which begins in January. The proposal must receive a two-thirds vote by the full Senate to be implemented. Famously, when Jeb Bush was governor he ordered that the Confederate flag be removed from flying outside of the state capitol and instead installed in a history museum.

The flag of the State of Florida does not include any depiction of the Confederate flag. For many white Southerners, the battle flag is a commemoration of the military service and sacrifice of ancestors who fought against the Union.

“I can remember it every day”, Joyner said.

“I don’t think many of us have really taken a real look at our seal to see what those flags were”, Joyner said. Darren Soto (D-Kissimmee). “I thought in light of the blood that was shed in South Carolina and the fact this is reminiscent of a time that still invokes a lot of pain in a lot of people, especially black people, it was time for us to take the initial step of removing the Confederate flag from the seal”. Bob Hurst, a member of the Tallahassee chapter of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, says the drive to remove the flag from the Senate seal is an act of political correctness at the expense of history.

But the action is unlikely to halt all discussion of how the state memorializes the Civil War.