The Utah Senate voted 21-7 Monday to advance a bill that would replace a statue of TV inventor Philo T. Farnsworth in Washington, D.C., with that of Martha Hughes Cannon, the first woman state senator in Utah and the country.
Many senators wore yellow roses, which once signified support for the women’s suffrage movement, as they alluded to the current cultural reckoning around women’s role in politics and beyond. This was a nod to Cannon’s role in helping Utah women gain the right to vote more than 40 years before Congress passed the 19th Amendment.
“We stand squarely on [Cannon’s] shoulders,” said Sen.