In April 2010 a furor arose when it was reported that Mabus made the proposal to name a United States Navy warship the after the late Pennsylvania Democratic congressman John Murtha. Additional naming controversies occurred due to the naming of the auxiliary ship after civil rights activist Cesar Chavez who has described his service in the U.S. Navy as "...the worst two years in my life," and a littoral combat ship the after former Arizona Democratic Congresswoman Gabby Giffords, after she suffered life-threatening wounds in the 2011 mass shooting in her home district of Tucson, Arizona.