Biden signs bill to install statues of first two female justices at Capitol

President Biden signed legislation on Wednesday to install statues of the first two female Supreme Court justices at the Capitol, the White House announced.

Statues honoring Sandra Day O’Connor and Ruth Bader Ginsburg will be installed at the Capitol following the signing. The legislation was passed by the House last month, after the Senate cleared it. 

The White House thanked a handful of lawmakers involved, including Bipartisan Women’s Caucus co-chairs Rep. Madeleine Dean (D-Pa.) and Puerto Rico Resident Commissioner Jenniffer González-Colón (R) as well as Sens. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Krysten Sinema (D-Ariz.).

“Today, President Biden signed my bipartisan bill celebrating the trailblazing lives of Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sandra Day O’Connor with statues in the Capitol. A permanent reminder of how they opened doors for women at a time when so many insisted on keeping them shut,” Klobuchar said in a statement.

O’Connor was nominated in 1981 by former President Reagan and become the first woman to serve on the high court. 

Ginsburg, a liberal justice and considered a feminist icon, became the second woman to join the Supreme Court in 1993. Ginsburg died at the age of 87 in September 2020. 

The development comes as the White House earlier this month celebrated the Senate confirmation vote of Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, who is set to become the first Black woman and first former public defender to sit on the high court. 

She will join Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Amy Coney Barrett in a near equal split of men and women serving on the Supreme Court.