The Naming Commission
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. 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." 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. 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. 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." 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. 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. 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. 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. The amendment offered by Brown passed by a vote of 33-23, with Republicans Bacon and Paul Mitchell (R-MI) joining in support. The committee unanimously voted to report the NDAA  favorably to the House. 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.” 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.” 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. 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." 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. 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. 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." 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. 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. 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: The Commission was authorized $2 million to conduct its work, 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. 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. 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 commemorate 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. 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. After receiving thousands of suggestions, the Commission posted a list of 90 names in March 2022 that it plans to consider as possible replacement names for the nine Army installations before the list is further narrowed to produce the list of finalists. At the end of March 2022 , the Commission posted a list of 758 Defense Department items at U.S. military installations in the United States, Germany and Japan that has ties to the Confederacy. Many of the items on the list are streets, signs, paintings and buildings. Included on the list, Arlington National Cemetery has a memorial dedicated to Confederate war dead which includes "highly sanitized depictions of slavery". 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. 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; Ann T. Johnston, 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." 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. On February 12, 2021, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin announced new appointments to the position, followed immediately after by the Democratic chairmen and ranking Republicans on the House and Senate Armed Services Committees. 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. Eight days later, Congressman Smith replaced Bunch with former Obama administration official Lawrence Romo . Michelle Howard is the chair of the committee with Ty Seidule being the vice-chair. U.S. Army Major General Deborah Kotulich has served as the chief of staff of The Naming Commission since November 2021. Items with Confederate names. Below is a list of U.S. military assets that may be affected by the NDAA: List of recommended base replacement names of March 2022. Below is a list of 90 names that the Commission published in March 2022, which the Commission is considering as possible replacement names for the nine army bases: