WASHINGTON — A long-delayed plaque honoring officers who defended the Capitol during the Jan. 6, 2021, attack will temporarily hang in the Senate side, after a resolution was adopted by unanimous consent Thursday afternoon.

“We owe them eternal gratitude, and this nation is stronger because of them,” Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., said on the floor.

The move by the Senate comes on the heels of the fifth anniversary of the attack and after the White House published a website this week blaming Capitol Police for escalating tensions during the riot and turning a “peaceful demonstration into chaos.”

Led by Sens. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., and Tillis, the resolution adopted Thursday directs the Architect of the Capitol to display the plaque in a “publicly accessible location in the Senate wing” until it can be “placed at a permanent location on the western front.”

Authorized by Congress in 2022, the plaque honoring law enforcement was supposed to be hanging outside the Capitol by March 2023 at the latest, according to the law. But it has become mired in controversy as President Donald Trump continues to downplay the Jan. 6 attack and Democrats push back, accusing him of trying to rewrite history.

“It was no small movement, not a peaceful protest outside, but a storming of the Capitol with some brutal assaults on folks within, the police officers within. So it’s so important that we fulfill the vision of the 2022 law and get this plaque up to honor those police officers,” Merkley said on the floor.

Even as police officers filed a lawsuit over the delay, a finished version of the plaque has remained in storage. Speaker Mike Johnson’s office has blamed logistical and technical challenges in how the law was written for the delay. While the law says the plaque should include “the names of all of the officers” who responded on Jan. 6, the finished version lists law enforcement agencies instead.

Critics have dismissed that reasoning, saying the finished plaque could include a digital supplement to display individual names.

“When I heard that apparently the law that we passed to recognize them and to place this plaque had a technical implementation problem, I went about seeing how we could clarify things,” Tillis said.

The resolution adopted Thursday does not address the technicalities, but instead gives the plaque a temporary home, sidestepping the House with a Senate-only solution. Tillis said Majority Leader John Thune “has agreed that we will be able to display this” on the Senate side of the Capitol.

The plaque’s intended placement on the western front of the Capitol was meant to mark a place where fighting was particularly fierce on Jan. 6, with some rioters assaulting police and breaking windows. But even a temporary spot in the Capitol was more than many had expected. After Republicans regained control of the House, some Democrats said they believed the plaque would never go on display as long as Johnson was speaker. Instead, they hung replica posters outside their offices.

Tillis has supported Trump in the past but has also been critical of some of the pardons the president issued to Jan. 6 rioters, saying that the most violent assaults should not be excused. On the Senate floor Thursday, he called Jan. 6 “one of the most significant stress tests for this institution since it was founded.”

“We heard thousands of people storm this Capitol. People died. Police officers were injured, hospitalized,” he said. “A lot of people said that was a dark day for democracy. I would leave you with this. It was a great day for democracy because of the law enforcement officers, the people that kept us safe.”

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