Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal (R) may have lost the battle before it even really started.
Jindal’s office told the Advocate newspaper on Thursday that the presidential candidate was exploring his options to halt the removal of four Confederate monuments in New Orleans.
“Gov. Jindal opposes the tearing down of these historical statues and has instructed his staff to look into the Heritage Act to determine the legal authority he has as governor to stop it,” Jindal spokesman Doug Cain said in an email to the newspaper.
But according to the Advocate, no such “Heritage Act” exists in Louisiana. The law in question may refer to a statue passed in South Carolina in 2000 that protected the Confederate flag at the Charleston statehouse, according to the paper
The monuments include Confederate Commander Robert E. Lee in Lee Circle, Confederate General P.G.T. Beauregard and Confederate President Jefferson Davis as well as the Liberty Monument, which memorializes attacks by white New Orleanians on the state’s biracial government during Reconstruction.
