A group of Democratic and Republican Congressmen are almost literally at war over the former’s insistence on hanging a painting in the U.S. Capitol depicting police officers as pigs, to the extent that some members of the Congressional Black Caucus are threatening violence against their Republican peers.

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Every year, members of Congress hold an art contest for students in their districts. The members then pick their favorite and hang it in the corridor connecting the U.S. Capitol with the House office buildings. The painting picked by Missouri Democrat Lacy Clay depicts police officers with pig’s heads pointing guns at a black man with a dog’s head, while black men and women in the background protest.

When Republican Congressman Duncan Hunter saw news reports about the painting, he absconded with it with the help of “a few colleagues.” Hunter told Fox News that it made him “angry,” and that “the Congressional Black Caucus now stands for portraying cops as pigs in the US Capitol.”

Clay responded by threatening to sue Hunter unless

he returned the painting, which Hunter eventually did. Clay said that the painting “perhaps” might violate the art contest’s rules (which ban politically sensitive issues), but it was the principle of the matter he worried about it. “This is really not about a student art competition anymore. It’s about defending the Constitution,” he told The St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

The painting was returned to its original place in the Capitol… only to then disappear again.

This time it turned out to be Hunter’s colleague Colorado Congressman Doug Lamborn. Politico’s Rachael Bade reports there was a threat of physical violence from Clay when Lamborn gave the painting back.

The chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus Cedric Richmond was even less subtle. “We may just have to kick somebody’s ass and stop them,” he told Politico.

UPDATE 4:54 PM ET: Fox News’ Chad Pergram provided an image of GOP Congressmen returning the painting to Clay’s office for the second time today:

and Clay went and hung it back up for the 3rd time today.

UPDATE 5:49 PM ET: Reporters are now gathering at the spot to see if it gets taken down again.

[Image via screengrab]

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Tags: Cedric Richmond, Doug Lamborn, Duncan Hunter, Lacy Clay