The Naming Commission

The Naming Commission

Great seal of the United States
Commission wordmark
Commission overview
Formed	March 2, 2021; 12 months ago (2021-03-02)
Type	Federal commission
Jurisdiction	Department of Defense
Annual budget	$2 million (total for life of commission)
Commission executives	Michelle Howard, Chair Ty Seidule, Vice Chair
Key document	National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2021
Website	thenamingcommission.gov

The Commission will consider and provide recommendations on U.S. bases named for Confederate soldiers, such as Fort Bragg, one the largest military installations in the world, which is named for Confederate General Braxton Bragg

The Commission on the Naming of Items of the Department of Defense that Commemorate the Confederate States of America or Any Person Who Served Voluntarily with the Confederate States of America, more commonly referred to as The Naming Commission, is a United States government commission created by the United States Congress in 2021 in order to rename military assets which have names associated with the Confederate States of America.^[1] The Naming Commission is mandated by Section 370 of the William M. (Mac) Thornberry National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2021 (NDAA), enacted on January 1, 2021. Within three years of enactment, the Secretary of Defense is required to implement a plan developed by the Commission and to "remove all names, symbols, displays, monuments, and paraphernalia that honor or commemorate the Confederate States of America or any person who served voluntarily with the Confederate States of America from all assets of the Department of Defense."^[2]

The legislation was influenced by the George Floyd protests in the summer of 2020 and resulting removal of Confederate monuments, which drew attention to the U.S. Army installations still named for Confederate soldiers. These installations and other defense property were not named during Reconstruction after the Civil War, but in the early to mid-20th century at the height of the Jim Crow era in order to court support from southerners for the military installations.^[3][4]

The creation of the Commission was one of the reasons that President Donald Trump vetoed the NDAA, resulting in the only veto override of his presidency.^[5]

Legislative history[]

On June 9, 2020, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) announced that she had "filed an amendment to the annual defense bill last week to rename all bases named for Confederate generals."^[6] On June 11, 2020, Reps. Anthony Brown (D-MD) and Don Bacon (R-NE) introduced H.R.7155, National Commission on Modernizing Military Installation Designations Act.^[7][8] The bill received support from 30 total co-sponsors, including three Republicans.

The Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) completed its markup of the FY2021 NDAA on June 11, 2020, and the bill reported out by committee included Warren's provision.^[9] Warren's provision to direct the renaming of the bases was altered to an approach that utilized a commission after Sen. Martha McSally (R-AZ) indicated her support to remove the names.^[10] Sens. Mike Rounds (R-SD) and Joni Ernst (R-IA) publicly stated that they supported the amendment to change base names.

During consideration of the FY2021 NDAA by the House Armed Services Committee (HASC) on July 1, 2020, Brown offered an amendment, which was co-led with Bacon, to directly require the Secretary of Defense to rename any defense property that is named after any person who served in the political or military leadership of any armed rebellion against the United States.^[11][12] The amendment offered by Brown passed by a vote of 33-23, with Republicans Bacon and Paul Mitchell (R-MI) joining in support.^[13] The committee unanimously voted to report the NDAA favorably to the House.^[14]

At a July 9, 2020 hearing in HASC, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley stated “I personally think that the original decisions to name those bases after Confederate bases were political decisions back in the 1910s and ‘20s....The American Civil War was fought, and it was an act of rebellion. It was an act of treason at the time against the Union. Against the stars and stripes. Against the U.S. Constitution. And those officers turned their backs on their oath.”^[15]

On November 18, 2020, Speaker Nancy Pelosi named the House Democratic members of the conference committee for the NDAA and in doing so stated that “this summer, the House and Senate on a bipartisan basis passed NDAAs with provisions to begin the process of changing the names of military bases and infrastructure named after individuals who served in the Confederacy. It is imperative that the conference report include provisions that secure this essential priority. Our bases should reflect our highest ideals as Americans.”^[16]

Conference negotiations over the provisions were tense and threatened the potential of a failure to pass the NDAA for the first time in its 60 year history.^[17][18] On November 20, 2020, the Congressional Black Caucus adopted a formal position that the final conference report for the NDAA "must include a provision mandating the redesignation of Department of Defense property honoring the Confederacy."^[19]

On December 2, 2020, the conference committee reported out the conference report which receded to the Senate language without amendment and incorporated the text as section 370 in the final bill.^[20] The House of Representatives agreed to the conference report by a vote of 335-78 on December 8, 2020, and the Senate followed suit on December 11, 2020, passing it 84-13.^[21] On December 23, 2020, President Trump vetoed the legislation, stating "these locations have taken on significance to the American story and those who have helped write it that far transcends their namesakes...I have been clear in my opposition to politically motivated attempts like this to wash away history and to dishonor the immense progress our country has fought for in realizing our founding principles."^[22]

On December 28, 2020, in the last vote of the 116th Congress in the House of Representatives, the House voted to override President Trump's veto by 322-87, including 109 Republicans and one Independent who voted yea.^[23] On January 1, 2021, in the last vote of the 116th Congress, the Senate voted to override President Trump's veto by 81-13, passing the commission into law.^[24] The passage of the FY2021 NDAA was the 60th consecutive time that such legislation had been passed and is the only instance in which it was enacted over the objection of the President.

Activities of the Commission[]

The Commission is chartered with five primary activities:

1. Assessing the cost of renaming or removing names, symbols, displays, monuments, or paraphernalia that commemorate the Confederate States of America or any person who served voluntarily with the Confederate States of America.
2. Developing procedures and criteria to assess whether an existing name, symbol, monument, display, or paraphernalia commemorates the Confederate States of America or person who served voluntarily with the Confederate States of America.
3. Recommending procedures for renaming assets of the Department of Defense to prevent commemoration of the Confederate States of America or any person who served voluntarily with the Confederate States of America.
4. Developing a plan to remove names, symbols, displays, monuments, or paraphernalia that commemorate the Confederate States of America or any person who served voluntarily with the Confederate States of America from assets of the Department of Defense, within the timeline established by this Act.
5. Including in the plan procedures and criteria for collecting and incorporating local sensitivities associated with naming or renaming of assets of the Department of Defense.

The Commission was authorized $2 million to conduct its work,^[25] and must brief the House and Senate Armed Services Committees on its progress by October 1, 2021, and then present a final briefing and written report to the armed services committees by October 1, 2022.^[26] The Commission meets biweekly and will brief the Secretary of Defense on its progress and recommendations. The Commission's focus throughout the summer and fall of 2021 comprised visiting the nine Army installations named for those who voluntarily served in the Confederacy.^[27] The Commission is meeting with installation leadership to gauge their level of planning and their local assessments.

The Commission has expanded their investigation of military assets to include assets with names that commemorates other Civil War era events or places to see if the name has a connection to the Confederacy. Examples given are USS Antietam (CG-54) and Fort Belvoir.^[28][26]

Until December 1, 2021, the Commission had collected suggestions from the general public for possible replacement names for the military assets that the Department of Defense may finally decide to rename.^[29]

Members[]

The eight-person Commission comprises four representatives appointed by the United States Secretary of Defense and one appointee each by the chairmen and ranking members of the Senate Committee on Armed Services and House Committee on Armed Services.^[25]

On January 8, 2021, Christopher C. Miller—the acting Defense Secretary for the outgoing Trump administration—appointed the four DoD representatives: "Sean McLean, a White House associate director; Joshua Whitehouse, the White House liaison to the Defense Department who has been involved in some of the post-election purges at the Pentagon; , acting Assistant Secretary of Defense for Legislative Affairs; and Earl G. Matthews, an Army National Guard colonel who previously served as principal deputy general counsel for the Army and on Trump’s National Security Council."^[5] However, on January 29, 2021, following the inauguration of Joe Biden on January 20, the new administration halted all appointments that had not yet completed paperwork. This affected the Secretary of Defense's four appointees to the Commission.^[30] On February 12, 2021, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin announced new appointments to the position,^[31] followed immediately after by the Democratic chairmen and ranking Republicans on the House and Senate Armed Services Committees.^[32]

On March 2, it was announced that Smithsonian Secretary Lonnie Bunch had to withdraw from the commission for personal reasons prior to swearing in ceremony.^[33] Eight days later, Congressman Smith replaced Bunch with former Obama administration official Lawrence Romo.^[34]

Michelle Howard is the chair of the committee with Ty Seidule being the vice-chair.^[28] U.S. Army Major General Deborah Kotulich has served as the chief of staff of The Naming Commission since November 2021.^[35]

Photo	Member	Title	Appointed by	Notes
	Michelle Howard	Admiral, U.S. Navy, retired	Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin	Committee chair. Became highest ranking woman in United States Armed Forces history and the third African-American to achieve the rank of four-star admiral.
	Ty Seidule	Brigadier General, U.S. Army, retired	Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin	Committee vice-chair. Emeritus Professor of History at the U.S. Military Academy, and author of the 2021 book Robert E. Lee and Me: A Southerner’s Reckoning with the Myth of the Lost Cause (ISBN 978-1250239266)
	Robert Neller	General, U.S. Marine Corps, retired	Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin	Retired as the 37th Commandant of the Marine Corps.
	Kori Schake	Director of Foreign & Defense Policy Studies, American Enterprise Institute	Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin	Has held senior positions in both the Defense and State Departments and advised the 2008 presidential campaign of John McCain.
	Thomas P. Bostick	Lieutenant General, U.S. Army, retired	Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee Jack Reed (D-RI)	The first African American graduate of West Point to serve as Chief of Engineers of the U.S. Army and Commanding General of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers
	Jerry Buchanan	Oklahoma businessman, Sergeant, U.S. Army, retired	Ranking Member of the Senate Armed Services Committee James Inhofe (R-OK)	An alternate member of the Oklahoma State Election Board, former chairman of the Tulsa County Republican Party, and retired U.S. Army drill sergeant[36]
	Lawrence Romo	Lieutenant Colonel, U.S. Air Force, retired	Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee Adam Smith (D-WA)	Former director of the Selective Service System during the Obama Administration. Currently national commander of the American GI Forum.
	Austin Scott	Congressman (R-GA-8)	Ranking Member of the House Armed Services Committee Mike Rogers (R-AL)	A member of the House Armed Services Committee from a district with several military installations in a state with two bases named after Confederate generals: Fort Benning and Fort Gordon[37] In 2001, Scott was the first Republican in the Georgia House of Representatives to work with Democrats to remove the Confederate battle emblem from the state's flag.

Items with Confederate names[]

USS Chancellorsville is named after a victory by the Confederate Army over the U.S. Army

Below is a list of U.S. military assets that may be affected by the NDAA:

Army[]

• List of U.S. Army installations named for Confederate soldiers
• The United States Military Academy has a dormitory, a road, and an entrance gate that honor alumni who served in the Confederate Army.^[38]
• Army National Guard units that can trace their lineage to state militia units that had served as a part of the Confederate Army, such as the 116th Infantry Regiment of the Virginia Army National Guard and the 118th Infantry Regiment of the South Carolina Army National Guard, are allowed under current U.S. Army regulations since 1946 to carry campaign streamers that commemorate Confederate victories over the United States.^[39][40][41]
• Fort Belvoir was added to the list in May 2021 by the commission since the current name of the base commemorates a slave plantation that previously occupied the site. The base opened in 1917 as Camp A. A. Humphreys, named in honor of union general Andrew A. Humphreys.^[28] The fort was renamed in 1935 at the request of Congressman Howard W. Smith (D-VA), an "avowed white supremacist".^[42]

Navy[]

• List of United States Navy ships commemorating the Confederate States of America
• USS Chancellorsville, a ship named for a battle in which a larger American army was defeated by a much smaller Confederate force. As recently as 2016, the ship's wardroom had a painting of Confederate generals Lee and Jackson.^[43]
• USNS Maury, a ship named for an officer in the Confederate navy.^[44]
• USS Antietam, a ship named after the Battle of Antietam. Although considered a Union victory, the battle was tactically inconclusive since General George B. McClellan failed to crush the much smaller Confederate force under Robert E. Lee^[28]
• The United States Naval Academy has an engineering building (Maury Hall) and the superintendent house (Buchanan House) that honor naval officers who had served in the Confederate Navy.^[45][46]

References[]