WASHINGTON—The House is expected to vote Tuesday on a bill that would remove statues of Confederates and other historical figures who advocated for slavery or white supremacy from public display in the U.S. Capitol.

The vote comes as Congress and the nation continue to grapple with America’s history of slavery and segregation. The extent to which racism remains embedded in American institutions and society, from schools to police departments, has sparked a fierce political debate in the year since the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis. The bill next heads to the Senate, where its fate is uncertain.

“Symbols of slavery, sedition and segregation have no place in the halls of Congress,” said House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D., Md.), a sponsor of the bill.

Some Republicans said the bill was misguided.

“Make no mistake, those who won the West and George Washington are next,” said Rep. Matt Rosendale (R., Mont.), who planned to vote no.

The legislation would specifically order the replacement of a bust of Chief Justice Roger Taney in the Capitol’s Old Supreme Court Chamber with one of Justice Thurgood Marshall. Chief Justice Taney, a slave owner, wrote the decision in the 1857 Dred Scott case, ruling that the Constitution excluded Black people from citizenship. Justice Marshall, who as a civil-rights lawyer won the Brown v. Board of Education case holding school segregation unconstitutional, became the first Black justice on the Supreme Court in 1967.

The bill also would remove statues and busts of individuals who voluntarily served the Confederacy, the group of 11 rebellious southern states that seceded from the union and fought a civil war against the U.S. in the 1860s to preserve slavery and white supremacy.

Among them are seven statues currently in the Capitol’s National Statuary Hall collection, including one of Jefferson Davis, the president of the Confederate States, given by Mississippi in 1931.

‘Symbols of slavery, sedition and segregation have no place in the halls of Congress,’ said House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, shown in July 2020.

‘Symbols of slavery, sedition and segregation have no place in the halls of Congress,’ said House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, shown in July 2020.

Photo: shawn thew/EPA/Shutterstock

Each state gets to display two statues in the Capitol to honor notable citizens. The second statue Mississippi gifted to the collection is James Zachariah George, a Confederate colonel during the Civil War who signed the Ordinance of Secession as a member of the Mississippi Secession Convention.

“Symbols have been an issue for a long time in Mississippi. People who’ve fought against the U.S. Government should not hold a place of honor,” said Rep. Bennie Thompson (D., Miss.) on Tuesday. He co-sponsored the bill before the House.

Under the legislation, any statues that are removed will go into storage in an area of the Capitol inaccessible to the public until they can be returned to the states that sent them.

The legislation is similar to a bill that passed the House last year, 305-113, with bipartisan support. Senate Democrats attempted to pass it by unanimous consent, but Sen. Roy Blunt (R., Mo.) objected, arguing that an agreement dating to 1864 gives each state the right to remove their statues, and some were moving to do so. Mr. Blunt also noted that the committee he chaired at the time had jurisdiction, and he reserved the right to hold a hearing before the bill came to the floor.

Then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.) declined to bring the measure up for a vote, saying the selection of the statues should be left to the states.

A bust of Chief Justice Roger Taney, a slave owner, is on display in the Capitol’s Old Supreme Court Chamber.

A bust of Chief Justice Roger Taney, a slave owner, is on display in the Capitol’s Old Supreme Court Chamber.

Photo: J. Scott Applewhite/Associated Press

Now Democrats control the Senate, as well as the House and White House. Mr. Hoyer said Tuesday he expected Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.) to hold a vote on the bill. It would need 60 votes to advance in the evenly divided Senate because of the chamber’s longstanding filibuster rule. That means 10 Republicans would have to vote with all 50 members of the Democratic caucus.

“I would hope that at least a third of the United States Senate Republicans would vote for it. Hopefully more than that,” Mr. Hoyer said. “This is, again, not about forgetting history, not about any kind of blurring over history, but it is saying we will not honor in the halls of Congress, by prominent display, either pictures, statues—or busts, in the case of Roger Brooke Taney—that give rise to a sense that somehow they are being honored when they dishonored democracy and human rights.”

James P. Clarke statue at the Capitol.

James P. Clarke statue at the Capitol.

Photo: Andrew DeMillo/Associated Press

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R., Calif.) said he supported the bill, but he accused the Democrats of seeking to further divide the country based on race. Noting that the statues being removed were of Democrats, he added: “Maybe it’s time the Democrats change the name of their party.”

Rep. James Clyburn (D., S.C.), the House Democratic whip, pushed back. He recounted how prominent Democratic segregationists, such as late Sen. Strom Thurmond of South Carolina, left the party over its stance on racial equality and became Republicans.

Some states have their own plans to replace figures commemorated in the Statuary Hall collection. Arkansas is currently represented by statues of Uriah M. Rose, an attorney who opposed secession but remained loyal to Arkansas, a Confederate state, during the Civil War, and James Paul Clarke, a governor of Arkansas and a U.S. senator who defended white supremacy as a key tenet of the Democratic Party headed into the 20th century. In 2019, Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson signed a bill that will eventually swap those statues with ones honoring Daisy Bates, a civil-rights activist, and Johnny Cash, the singer and songwriter.

Virginia has recalled its statue of Robert E. Lee, the commander of the Confederate States Army, and North Carolina plans to replace the statue of Charles Brantley Aycock with a statue of Rev. Billy Graham. Mr. Aycock wasn’t a Confederate, but advocated for circumventing the 15th Amendment to prevent Black Americans from voting.

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House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.) last year removed four portraits of former speakers who had served in the Confederacy, saying they shouldn’t be honored because they betrayed the nation.

In addition to the bust of Justice Taney and the statues of Messrs. Davis, George and Aycock, these are the figures who would be removed from display in the Capitol if the bill is signed into law, based on a preliminary assessment, according to a Hoyer aide:

-Bust of John C. Breckinridge, the Confederate Secretary of War in 1865

-Statue of John C. Calhoun, who served as vice president, senator, House member and secretary of state and war. He died before the Civil War but argued that slavery was a “necessary evil.”

-Statue of Wade Hampton III, who served the Confederate States of America as a military officer, chosen by South Carolina for the Statuary Hall collection

-Statue of John E. Kenna, who served in the Confederate Army, chosen by West Virginia for the Statuary Hall collection

-Statue of Edmund Kirby Smith, a general in the Confederate Army, chosen by Florida for the Statuary Hall collection

-Statue of Alexander Hamilton Stephens, vice president of the Confederacy, chosen by Georgia for the Statuary Hall collection

Write to Lindsay Wise at lindsay.wise@wsj.com