Will Clovis display ‘In God We Trust’ in council chamber? Leaders weigh options
The Clovis City Council is poised to approve adding the “In God We Trust” national motto to its boardroom, but not before council members decide on what else may be permitted for public display in the future.
Amid months of debate over whether to display the national motto in the council chamber, Clovis City Councilmember Lynne Ashbeck proposed that the city establish policies and guardrails, first.
“Because what started out as ‘In God We Trust’ through with great love, turned into the Declaration of Independence, the US Constitution, or let’s reupholster the Ten Commandments, it could go on and on,” Ashbeck said at a recent council meeting. “I feel like if we don’t have guardrails about what we’re trying to do here, that we are not going to have any way to manage this going forward, and there’s not going to be any history up here to be able to pass along.”
The proposal was brought to the Clovis City Council by dozens of residents in early September. The group launched its effort after the Fresno County Board of Supervisors voted in August to display the national motto in its boardroom.
Since then, the council has had several rounds of discussions. Residents in favor and in opposition of the change submitted letters to the council and gave public comments. Clovis held four events to gather public input specifically for this topic, and conducted two surveys.
In one of the surveys, 68% of the 508 respondents said they supported adding the national motto to the council chamber. Half of those respondents were previously unaware of the issue.
In addition to the national motto, 42% of respondents supported adding the phrase “We the People” on the chamber walls as well, 37% favored displaying the phrase “A Way of Life,” and 32% hoped to see a framed copy of the U.S. Constitution, according to the survey results.
Bill Scott, one of the residents who came up with the “In God We Trust” proposal, told the council at a Jan. 12 meeting that the group had already gathered 341 signatures in support of the item.
Last week, Ashbeck requested the council to pause the installation plan at the prior council meeting to establish council policies regarding the chamber decoration.
“While we continue to look at the data, I would just like to take a moment to see if we can craft a policy to give us some guidelines around this,” Ashbeck said. “Otherwise, I think this is an impulsive, let’s do this because someone else did that.”
Ashbeck said that with the change from at-large to district-based elections and the term limits, there might be a new council after a period of time.
“I worry a lot about five years from now, none of us are here, and not that five better people won’t be sitting here, but I just think we need to leave them some guardrails to think about what matters to the City of Clovis and how we arrived at that idea,” Ashbeck said.
Other councilmembers agreed with Ashbeck’s proposal to create policies, but Mayor Pro Tem Diane Pearce opposed suspending further development of a plan for installing the national motto.
“This first came up in September, so we haven’t exactly rushed it,” Pearce said. “We did do an actual scientific survey that had some great community feedback that was brought back to us. So I don’t see why we would, after going through all of that, take the time to be deliberative about it, I absolutely do not support that, and I don’t think that’s in good faith to what we’ve already done.”
The council will discuss the item on Monday. A separate item about creating policies for chamber decoration will be in a future council meeting agenda.
This story was originally published February 8, 2026 at 5:00 AM.
