The Freedom From Religion Foundation is delighted that a House committee today unanimously approved a bill to erect a memorial to Thomas Paine in a prominent location in Washington, D.C. The bill now awaits action on the House floor.
In 2022, Congress authorized the Thomas Paine Memorial Association to install a Paine memorial. Still, Congress needs to permit a site in Area 1 near the Capitol and the National Mall. HR 9600, the Common Sense 250 Act of 2026, sponsored this year by Reps. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., and Victoria Spartz, R-Ind., places the memorial in this area reserved for figures of preeminent and lasting significance to the country. The House Natural Resources Committee’s approval today marks significant progress for the bill.
“We’re one step closer to getting our Forgotten Founder Thomas Paine the recognition he deserves in our nation’s capital,” comments Annie Laurie Gaylor, co-president of the Freedom From Religion Foundation and secretary of the Thomas Paine Memorial Association. “We are grateful to Chair Bruce Westerman, Ranking Member Jared Huffman and Reps. Raskin and Spartz for getting us here. There is no more meaningful way for Congress to commemorate our nation’s 250th anniversary than by ensuring this long-overdue acknowledgment of the Revolution’s principal champion for independence.”
Margaret Downey, president of the Thomas Paine Memorial Association, remarked, “Today, the Natural Resources Committee said Thomas Paine deserves a memorial in the company of Washington, Jefferson and Lincoln. Paine gave this country its argument for independence and then shouldered a musket to help win it. We are grateful to every member of the committee who voted to move this bill forward.”
Renowned sculptor Zenos Frudakis, best-known for his Freedom sculpture in Philadelphia, has been commissioned to create the memorial.
Two weeks ago, Gaylor made the case for the bill, testifying before the Natural Resources Subcommittee on Federal Lands. Gaylor’s testimony helped to advance the bill in committee.
During her testimony, Gaylor traced Paine’s role in the nation’s founding to soon after he arrived from England at Benjamin Franklin’s invitation in 1774. “Common Sense,” published 250 years ago this January, sold an estimated 500,000 copies when the 13 colonies held 2.5 million people. Paine relinquished the copyright and gave the proceeds to the Continental Army, then enlisted as a private in 1776 and marched with George Washington through that first winter campaign. The experience produced the first of the “Crisis Papers” (“These are the times that try men’s souls”) in 1776, which Washington ordered read aloud to soldiers to keep up morale.
Paine gave the United States of America its very name and embodies this country’s democratic ideals — making it imperative that we pay appropriate tribute to him in the nation’s capital.
The Freedom From Religion Foundation is a U.S.-based nonprofit dedicated to defending the constitutional principle of separation between state and church and educating the public on matters relating to nontheism. With about 41,000 members, FFRF is the largest association of freethinkers (atheists, agnostics and humanists) in North America. For more information, visit ffrf.org.
