Questions about the Naming Commission
Does Congress REALLY agree with what its' recommendations and conclusions?
These questions address issues with the judgments and recommendations of the Naming Commission, as laid out in the Preface to its Final Report. Feel free to ask them to your own Congressman or Senator, especially if they were in Congress during 2021 and 2022, when the commission did its research and wrote its conclusions:
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1. What mechanism did Congress use to review the recommendations of the Naming Commission, before they were implemented?
2. Did the full Congress debate and vote on the recommendations themselves? (I.e,, not as part of a larger package of legislation)
3. In the Preface to its Final Report, the Naming Commission said the following: In passing the 2021 William M. “Mac” Thornberry National Defense Authorization Act, the United States Congress determined that Confederates and the Confederacy no longer warrant commemoration through Department of Defense assets.
a. Is that actually what Congress determined? There is no language in the FY 2021 NDAA that actually says that the Congress determined that Confederates and the Confederacy no longer warrant commemoration through DOD assets. (Certainly the Naming Commission didn’t just assume that this was what Congress meant).
b. What level of respect does Congress feel that individual Confederates deserve?
4. U.S. District Court Judge Rossie Alston, in his December 19th 2023 ruling on his Temporary Restraining Order that prevented the removal of the Reconciliation Memorial from Arlington National Cemetery, said the following (emphasis added):
This case essentially attempts to place this Court at the center of a great debate between individuals extolling the virtues, romanticism and history of the Old South and equally passionate individuals, with government endorsement, who believe that art accentuating what they believe is a harsh depiction of a time when a certain race of people were enslaved and treated like property is not deserving of a memorial at a place of refuge, honor and national recognition.
Judge Alston’s apparently concluded that Congress has determined that the Reconciliation Memorial did not deserve to be in a “place of refuge, honor and national reconciliation.” Is that the conclusion Congress intended for Judge Alston---and the rest of the world---to reach?
5. Does the Congressman think the Confederate heritage community received "due process" from, or was treated fairly by, Congress in this matter? Specifically:
a. Did the Confederate heritage community have a chance to respond to/rebut the judgments and recommendations before they went into effect?
b. Did the Confederate heritage community have a chance to present information in its own defense?
6. In respect to the statement about Confederate memorials in the Preface to the commission's Final Report:
a. Does the Congressman think the Naming Commission's assessment of Confederate memorials is accurate? Does he/she think the commission did enough research to justify such a sweeping assertion?
b. Is Congress trying to influence the discussions, now ongoing in many communities in the South, as to how Confederate memorials should be handled?
7. Does the Congressman feel that the Naming Commission's recommendations and judgments, and the tone of the report’s language, show a proper level of respect to the men and women who served in the Confederate forces, their descendants and their communities?
8. The Naming Commission recommendations essentially led to the near-complete scourging of any signs of Confederate heritage from DOD assets. It appears that Congress determined that it was inappropriate for any meaningful level of possible commemoration to Confederates on DOD property. Seeing as Native American tribes also fought against the United States Army and enslaved people (white settler men, women and children), shouldn’t Congress now direct the U.S. Army to rename its helicopters, which are traditionally named after Native American tribes?