Senators Defy Trump on Bases Named for Confederate Generals

(Bloomberg) -- A key panel in the Republican-led Senate is defying President Donald Trump’s demand to keep the names of Confederate military leaders on U.S. bases.

The draft of the annual defense policy bill was amended late Wednesday in the Senate Armed Services Committee to include language creating a commission to implement a removal plan within three years.

The amendment was sponsored by Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and approved on a voice vote. If it passes the full Senate, the Democratic-controlled House would be likely to support the effort, setting up a potential veto confrontation with the president.

The action came hours after Trump tweeted that he would stop any move to rename the bases. On Thursday, Trump tweeted again, attacking Warren and her amendment and urging Republican senators not to “fall for this!”

He said the provision would rename “many of our legendary Military Bases from which we trained to WIN two World Wars.”

‘Fidelity to Constitution’

The provision to rename the bases “would maintain our fidelity to the Constitution,” Senator Jack Reed of Rhode Island, the committee’s top Democrat, told reporters on a conference call. He called the panel’s move a “very thoughtful, very careful and ultimately bipartisan approach to a very difficult issue.”

But Senator James Inhofe of Oklahoma, the committee’s Republican chairman, said the communities that host military bases should have a say in such decisions. “I don’t agree,” he said of the provisions. “We should have state input in this thing.”

Republican Senators Tom Cotton of Arkansas, who wanted an exception made for memorials to Confederate war dead, and Josh Hawley of Missouri also opposed the move. The defense policy bill would authorize $740.5 billion for national security.

Hawley said on the Senate floor late Thursday he would offer an amendment to keep the Confederate names. He ripped the effort to strip them as “historical revisionism” intended to divide the country for political gain.

“The purpose was to erase from history, erase every person and name and event not righteous enough and to cast those who would object as defenders of the cause of slavery,” Hawley said. He added his amendment wasn’t intended to celebrate the Confederacy but instead to embrace “our union shared together as Americans.”

House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy told reporters he isn’t opposed to renaming the bases but wants to wait to see what the defense bill says in the end.

The call to rename bases has come after weeks of protests against racism in the U.S. after the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police. Proponents say the U.S. military shouldn’t continue honoring those who led an insurrection against the U.S. government in order to perpetuate slavery.

The commission the Senate bill would create would have eight members: four selected by the Defense Department and four chosen by the chairman and top minority party member of the Senate Armed Services Committee.

Virginia’s governor, Democrat Ralph Northam, is seeking to remove a statue of top Confederate General Robert E. Lee in Richmond, the state capital. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has renewed her push to have 11 statutes of Confederate leaders removed from the U.S. Capitol.

“These names have to go from these bases, and these statues have to go from the Capitol,” Pelosi told reporters at her weekly news conference Thursday, adding that Trump “seems to be the only person left who doesn’t get it.”

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said he and Senate Rules Chairman Roy Blunt agree that it’s best to let states decide which two statues they want displayed in the Capitol, as has been past practice.

“A number of states are trading them out now,” McConnell said. “I think that’s the appropriate way to deal with the statue issue. The states make that decision.” He didn’t rule out moving the statues to less prominent spots in the Capitol.

Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy had signaled he’s open to a conversation with lawmakers about changing the names of Army bases named after Confederate officers.

That could include Fort Hood in Texas, named after Confederate General John Bell Hood, and others including Fort Benning in Georgia, Fort Bragg in North Carolina, Fort Lee in Virginia, Fort Polk in Louisiana, and Fort Rucker in Alabama.

The U.S. Navy is moving to ban the Confederate battle flag from public spaces on its vessels and bases.

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