Chicago Could Replace Canceled Columbus Statue With One Of Scalia

Chicago Could Replace Canceled Columbus Statue With One Of Scalia

The Chicago Park District recently asked residents to vote on a new statue to replace the one of Christopher Columbus it removed from Arrigo Park, and the late Justice Antonin Scalia is among the options.

The city canceled the statues of Columbus amidst racial riots and vandalism in 2020 and returned one to Chicago’s Joint Civic Committee of Italian Americans. Then-Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot misleadingly claimed the statues taken from Grant Park and Arrigo Park would be “temporarily removed.”

Over the weekend, voting wrapped up on a replacement statue of a prominent Italian American to honor instead. The voting, intended to include only city residents, lacked safeguards against cheating.

“While the online form created on a Microsoft platform asks voters for their name and ZIP code, there is no mechanism to prevent people from outside the city from casting a ballot by creating a false name and picking a random Chicago zip code,” WTTW reported.

The city will review the top three vote-getters and then select from among them, according to WTTW.

There are eight options, including the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, Amerigo Vespucci, and Frances Xavier Cabrini, a Catholic nun known as “Mother Cabrini.”

Christopher Scalia, the son of the late Supreme Court justice, had urged his followers to vote in favor, poking fun at Chicago’s notorious history of voter fraud.

A park in Chicago is taking down a statue of Columbus and is asking people to vote for its replacement. People of Chicago, you know what to do: vote early and vote often!https://t.co/hCR6ea3vMf pic.twitter.com/yV0YQggGEO

— Christopher J. Scalia (@cjscalia) January 31, 2026

“People of Chicago, you know what to do: vote early and vote often!” Scalia wrote on X.

Of course, a statue of Justice Scalia, who previously taught at the University of Chicago, would likely provoke similar outrage to that directed at Columbus.

After all, the Catholic conservative justice voted in favor of letting states regulate abortion and sexual activity.

Meanwhile, WTTW reporter Heather Cherone lamented the Chicago Park District had not done enough to advance diversity among its statues.

“Chicago has few public monuments dedicated to women or people of color, and city officials have yet to make good on promises to correct that imbalance,” she opined in the middle of her article.

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