WASHINGTON (AP) – A separate senator from Utah has singled out bilateral approval for two new national museums to honor American Latin and women, arguing that “what we already need is to further divide the already divided nation.” Republican Sen. Mike Lee on Thursday objected to the creation of two proposed Smithsonian Museums, creating several projects that have stood the test of time for decades and garnering broad bipartisan support. The bill approving the Latin Museum would have been sent to the Senate for approval by President Donald Trump for his signature. The Senate sought to pass the proceedings by voice vote requiring the approval of each senator. The Senate floor came amid a stalemate over a new corona virus relief bill that highlights the difficulty in achieving even the most widely supported goals in polarized Congress. Lawmakers can still find a way to create museums, including adding bills to the mandatory expense package, but doing so will further complicate law enforcement. Lee’s move came after his Republican colleagues spoke out in support of the initiative. New Jersey Sen. Bob Menendez, a Texas senator who wrote the law to create the American Latin National Museum with a Democrat. John Cornin said just before the objection that this was a 25-year effort. “Many Americans are simply unaware of the enormous contributions these men and women have made before us, and providing a home for their stories in the nation’s capital is an important way we can correct this mistake,” Cornin said. Lee objected, saying the creation of museums celebrating individual groups “armed diversity.” “Especially at the end of such a bad, broken year, Congress should not split one of the national institutional corners of our unique national identity,” Lee said, adding that such a national group “turned our college campuses into rival contests and unleashed Orwellian” mob to cancel anyone who dared to express original thinking. ”Lee similarly sen. Susan Collins, R.-Maine, legislated to create a National Women’s Museum. Collins said it was a “sad moment” and that he hoped the bills would move by the end of this year. She said she would not give up the fight. “Of course, in a year as we celebrate the 100th anniversary of women’s suffrage, this is the time, this is the moment,” Collins said. Lee said museums dedicated to American Indians and African Americans already seated in the National Mall would be an exception. He said the groups were “basically written from our national story, and even their own stories were almost destroyed”, so “federal funding to retrieve the specific stories of those communities is unique. In museums dedicated to the long-excluded specific environment.” He pointed to internal experimentation – the impetus for an attempt to create a museum – which he described as “deliberate neglect” as part of an organization aimed at Hispanic and Latin culture. “We have been formally excluded, not because this senator said so, but because Smithsonier himself said so,” Mendes said. .
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