Bill on defacing Capitol advances

The Senate on Monday approved a bill that would set penalties for damage to buildings on the state Capitol grounds, on the Capitol Mall and at the Governor’s Mansion.

The Senate voted 35-0 to send to the governor House Bill 1313 by Rep. Johnny Rye, R-Trumann.

Under the bill, a person commits the offense of defacing or damaging a public building or an object of public respect if he or she purposely defaces, mars, vandalizes, destroys or otherwise damages the Capitol building; any other building on the Capitol grounds, on the Capitol Mall and on the grounds of the Governor’s Mansion; or any publicly owned monument, statue, fixture or landscape on the Capitol grounds, Capitol Mall or Governor’s Mansion grounds.

The bill would define a publicly owned monument as an object on public land that commemorates a person, people or an event that has become relevant to a social group as part of the social group’s remembrance of historic times or is part of the social group’s cultural heritage due to the object’s artistic, historic, social, political, technical or architectural importance.