WMUR
By John DiStaso
June 25, 2020

RENAMING CONFEDERATE-NAMED BASES. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen on Wednesday joined more than 30 other Senate Democrats in in introducing legislation to strip any references to the Confederacy from the nation’s military bases.

Shaheen and Sen. Maggie Hassan were among the senators who signed on to Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s bill to require the Pentagon to “remove all names, symbols, displays, monuments and paraphernalia that honor or commemorate the Confederate States of America and anyone who voluntarily served it from all military bases and other assets of the Department of Defense,” according to a statement from Shaheen’s office, which we first reported on Twitter.

Under the legislation, the Pentagon must rename the assets within one year.

The legislation is a standalone bill, based on Warren’s amendment that was added to the fiscal year 2021 National Defense Authorization Act, which passed the Senate Armed Services Committee earlier this month. Shaheen is a member of the committee.

President Donald Trump has opposed renaming military bases honoring Confederate leaders after Army generals said they were open to the idea.

The bill would cover “any base, installation, street, building, facility, aircraft, ship, plane, weapon, equipment, or any other property owned or controlled by the Department of Defense.”

“The naming of military bases is a position of honor and should be reserved for American heroes who embodied our values. It is long overdue that we right an egregious wrong and rename our military installations,” said Shaheen. “There was bipartisan support to address this in the defense authorization bill and I’ll continue to fight to see this effort through the Senate. We should seize this opportunity to remove shameful reminders of our nation’s darkest past and replace them with true American heroes.”

“The names of those who fought against the United States of America for the Confederacy should be relegated to history books, not honored on our military bases,” Hassan said. “As we continue to work to live up to our nation’s highest ideals of equality and justice for all, removing Confederate names from military bases is a long-overdue step.”