ALBANY, New York — Gov. Kathy Hochul’s lifelong obsession with Harriet Tubman is propelling an effort to place a statue of the 19th century abolitionist in the U.S. Capitol.

The push to put Tubman’s marble likeness in the Capitol’s Statuary Hall is also being backed by both the state Senate and Assembly, which support the governor’s plan to swap out a statue of founding father Robert Livingston.

There are 100 statues in Statuary Hall — two for each state. The planned switch to Tubman would be the first change in one of New York’s spots since the likenesses of Livingston and George Clinton were shipped to Washington in the 1870s.

Hochul has been as big a booster of Tubman as anybody. Last year, she told a group of elementary school students about her childhood fascination with the Union Army spy.

“When I was in third grade, I had this one favorite book. It was called ‘The Story of Harriet Tubman,’” Hochul said. “It was a book I used to check out of the library all the time. I didn’t own it. I checked it out so much, the librarian one day said, ‘Why don’t you just keep it?’ And what I’d do is, late at night, my parents said, ‘Turn the lights out,’ it was dark in my room, I crept out of bed and I’d go grab that book. And I read it over and over and over because I could not get over how courageous she was.”

Seventeen statutes have been removed from Statuary Hall since 2003, most of whom were Confederates or their sympathizers. Democrats in the House have twice passed a bill in recent years to ban such statues. And while this has yet to win approval from the Senate, other efforts to remove sculptures that have faced criticism have been successful — including North Carolina’s Republican-backed push to replace segregationist Charles Brantley Aycock with Billy Graham last year.

Hochul has made at least four official visits to Tubman’s historic home in Auburn since she became lieutenant governor a decade ago. She renamed one of the boats the state uses on the Erie Canal after Tubman in 2022. And she announced in 2023 that the state would spend $400,000 to add a Tubman statute to Binghamton — which is set to be unveiled this Friday.

Livingston spent 24 years as New York’s first chancellor — a post that made him the top judge in the state, but which also had some powers currently held by the governor. His tenure overlapped with a stint as the first American to hold the job that evolved into secretary of state. He later served as Thomas Jefferson’s ambassador to France and negotiated the Louisiana Purchase.

But his historical standing has been marred by the fact that he owned more than a dozen slaves.

Livingston was never a consensus choice for a statue. As the Legislature began debating the honorees in 1872, steamboat inventor Robert Fulton seemed like the early frontrunner to join Clinton.

Hochul’s proposal, which was buried in her budget and has since been included in both chamber’s one-house budget bills, would create a five-member commission tasked with selecting a Tubman statute. The governor would then be tasked with working with the Architect of the Capitol to finalize plans.

“One of the architects of the Underground Railroad, one of the folks who has redefined who we are as a human,” said Sen. Jamaal Bailey — who’s sponsoring a bill to make Harriet Tubman Day a state holiday — about why the abolitionist is deserving of the historical honor.

“From a human perspective, not just a Black perspective — and I think it’s great, as a Black person in New York state, for her to have this recognition — I think it’s very important for us to do,” Bailey said.

While Livingston might be removed from Washington, his likeness will live on. Two exact replicas were made when his statue was finalized in 1875. One of them still stands prominently at the western end of the state Senate’s lobby in New York’s Capitol building.

Michael Bennet stopped short of calling for Chuck Schumer to step aside as Senate Democrats’ leader — though he pointedly compared the situation to the party’s internal strife over then-President Joe Biden serving as the party’s nominee last summer.

“On the leadership question, it’s always better to examine whether folks are in the right place, and we’re certainly going to have that conversation,” the Coloradoan said in a town hall in Golden, Colorado, Wednesday evening.

Bennet sidestepped a question about whether he would call for Schumer to step down, referencing the end of Biden’s disastrous 2024 election bid where the president ultimately stepped aside after growing agitation from other elected Democrats.

“In dodging your question, let me just say: It’s important for people to know when it’s time to go, and I think in the case of Joe Biden, and we’re going to have conversations I’m sure in the foreseeable future, about all the Democratic leadership,” he said.

Bennet’s statement comes almost a week after Schumer backed a GOP funding bill that most of his caucus voted against.

Bennet — a one-time 2020 presidential candidate — was one of the earliest Senate Democrats to publicly grapple with Biden’s position at the top of the ticket in 2024. He has publicly expressed interest in a potential run for Colorado governor next year.

Schumer has since faced intense scrutiny from his party — and particularly members of the House — but has repeatedly contended the move was necessary to stave off a government shutdown that he believes would have allowed President Donald Trump and Elon Musk to accelerate their crusade to hollow out federal agencies.

That, he has said, could also shunt critical public services like food benefits or mass transit funding.

“I’m a smart politician, I can read what people want,” Schumer told BLN’s Chris Hayes on Tuesday night. But Republicans, he continued, put forward a “terrible, terrible, bill,” and a shutdown would have been “so much worse.”

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) said at a town hall earlier this week that Schumer “was wrong,” WBUR reported, but otherwise did not address if he should remain leader.

Much of this resentment is concentrated among House Democrats, who were largely united in voting against the GOP bill. Senate Democrats have largely held their tongues.

Earlier this week, former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi — a longtime partner of Schumer’s — added to the fire, saying, “I myself don’t give away anything for nothing. … I think that’s what happened the other day.”

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