A Democratic senator grinned from ear to ear as she ripped down displays put up by her conservative colleague. 

Omaha representative Machaela Cavanaugh, 46, was caught on camera tearing down framed posters outside her office at the Nebraska State Capitol.

The exhibit was erected to celebrate America's semiquincentennial, the 250th year since the nation was founded.

She told WOWT: 'I didn’t read them, I didn’t look at them.'

'If you ask me what ones I took down, I couldn’t tell you. I just took down the things that were on the wall in my hallway.' 

She claimed she removed the artwork because state senators are not allowed to display anything outside their offices.

'I thought: "Well, I’m not allowed to have things lining the hall of my office,"' she said. 'I tried to take them down as gently as I could and not damage any of them, and I stacked them inside of my office and I let the state patrol know that they were there.'

The artwork she removed was a part of the Founders Museum, which is a traveling exhibition created by conservative group PragerU. 

Machaela Cavanaugh, 46, who represents Omaha, was caught on surveillance footage smiling while ripping down framed posters outside her office on Wednesday

The artwork is now sitting inside her office at the Nebraska State Capitol

It was installed this week and consists of 82 paintings along the first-floor hallway.  

PragerU's chief executive, Marissa Streit, condemned Cavanaugh's actions, calling them 'anti-American'.

Republican Governor Jim Pillen also criticized her, writing on X: 'Sadly, this morning several of those displays were ripped off the walls by State Senator Machaela Cavanaugh, infamous for filibustering the entire 2023 legislative session to protect sex-change surgeries on kids.

Cavanaugh was seen smiling as she spoke about removing the display in an interview afterwards

'Celebrating America during our 250th year should be a moment of unity and patriotism, not divisiveness and destructive partisanship. I am disappointed in this shameful and selfish bad example.' 

The Nebraska Administrative Code does note that short-term displays can be shown in the State Capitol. However, this display is scheduled to remain until around summertime.

The code also states that displays should only last around one week and are 'limited to the first floor rotunda.'