A bust of Nathan Bedford Forrest is displayed in the Tennessee State Capitol Thursday, Aug. 17, 2017, in Nashville, Tenn. (AP Photo/Mark Humphrey)NASHVILLE – Armed with a new legal opinion, Tennessee Lt. Gov. Randy McNally and House Speaker Cameron Sexton plan to mount a final charge against Gov. Bill Lee’s plan to remove the bronze bust of Confederate Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest from the state Capitol building.
State Attorney General Herbert Slatery this week responded to the two Republicans speakers’ February request for his legal assessment on Lee’s effort to relocate the bust to the Tennessee State Museum. The bust was placed on the Capitol’s second floor outside the House and Senate chambers in 1978 and has been the target of protests ever since.
In a six-page legal opinion, Slatery, who has departed from his predecessors’ decadeslong policy and rarely issues public legal opinions on grounds they might be used in lawsuits, cited different sections of state code.
He opined both Lee and the two speakers had legal grounds for their respective interpretations on whether the Forrest bust removal effort should have come before the seven-member State Building Commission on which both speakers sit.
McNally and Sexton argue the issue should have come before the panel after the plan from Lee, a Republican, won initial approval from the State Capitol Commission in 2020 and before it went before the Tennessee Historical Commission on March 8.