Committee approves resolution to return Ten Commandments monument to Capitol grounds

The State and Local Government Committee voted to approve House Joint Resolution 15 to retrieve and reinstall a granite monument inscribed with the Ten Commandments on the State Capitol grounds.

State Representative Shane Baker, who introduced HJR 15, told the committee the granite monument was donated to the commonwealth in 1971 by the Fraternal Order of Eagles, removed during a 1980s construction project and subsequently returned to the Fraternal Order of Eagles in Hopkinsville after litigation. Baker said the resolution directs the Historic Properties Advisory Commission to retrieve the monument, return it to the State Capitol grounds and place it at Monument Park for maintenance and display.

The resolution’s backers cited U.S. Supreme Court decisions in Van Orden and, more recently, cases addressing public prayer to argue that historical-practices standards, rather than the Lemon test, now govern Establishment Clause questions. Representative Jason Petrie and others said the resolution addresses a specific historical monument and does not prevent others from proposing different displays in the future.

Senator Chambers Armstrong said he would vote no, citing legal uncertainty and concern the measure could prompt costly litigation despite recent high-court rulings. "I'm gonna vote no today," Armstrong said. "It does not seem as clear to me as it is to you all that what we're doing here would fall within the bounds of the new legal test. And so I worry that we're opening ourselves up to litigation that could be very costly."

Senator Mills explained his yes vote by calling the Ten Commandments a historical document and "almost...a kind of a secular code of conduct." Chair Nimas called the roll after a motion and second; the committee approved the resolution by a recorded vote the chair summarized as "8 yays, 1 no, 1 pass."

The resolution names the Historic Properties Advisory Commission as the implementing body and instructs it to return the specified monument to Monument Park on the State Capitol grounds and to maintain the display. The measure passed the committee and will be reported to the full Senate.

Details in the bill text and the committee discussion note the monument’s approximate size (about 6 feet tall and 4 feet wide), its 1971 donation by the Fraternal Order of Eagles and that it was removed from display during a 1980s construction project. The transcript records references to the Kentucky circuit court Adlin case, the U.S. Supreme Court Van Orden decision (2005) and a 2022 case addressing public prayer, which supporters said shifted judicial analysis away from the Lemon test.

The committee’s action was limited to recommending the resolution; any legal questions or challenges would be determined by courts if raised after reinstallation.