GOP divided in fight over renaming bases

GOP divided in fight over renaming bases BY ALEXANDER BOLTON - 06/16/20 06:00 AM EDT

A legislative fight over whether to rename military installations named after Confederate generals is quickly dividing Senate Republicans and creating campaign headaches.

GOP strategists warn that a misstep could prove costly, giving GOP senators heartburn in a year when they have to defend 23 seats, compared to just 12 for Democrats, who are growing increasingly confident of their chances to win back the majority in November.

The hot-button issue took shape last week when a group of Republicans led by Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) called for modifying an amendment sponsored by Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) that would direct the secretary of Defense to remove any commemoration of the Confederate States of America from all assets — with the exception of grave markers. The revised provision was later approved during a markup of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), with some GOP support.

Cotton ultimately voted against the amendment by voice vote when Warren didn't accept all of his proposed changes.

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), a rising conservative star, is now leading an effort to weaken language that he said caught many of his GOP colleagues by surprise.

“This was unexpected, I think. A lot of people did not know this was even going to be voted on,” Hawley said. “And then their initial impression was, ‘Oh, this is just a study.’ They don’t realize that actually no, as Sen. Warren said, it’s mandatory language.”

Hawley’s push could put some Republicans in a bind, particularly those who supported the measure behind closed doors, even though Warren’s amendment was adopted by voice vote, meaning there’s no official record of which GOP members voted for it.

Hawley said he raised his objections in the Senate Armed Services Committee hearing room last week and asked for a roll-call vote but had his request denied.

It’s an especially charged topic for Republicans from states that were part of the Confederacy, such as Sen. Thom Tillis (N.C.), who faces a tough road to reelection and whose state is home to Fort Bragg, named after Confederate Gen. Braxton Bragg.

Tillis was one of several Republicans who raised concerns about Warren’s amendment during the committee markup. Other vulnerable Republican incumbents, Sens. Martha McSally (Ariz.) and Joni Ernst (Iowa), said they voted for the measure.

Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.), who is also up for reelection but in a deep-red state, spoke up in favor of the amendment behind closed doors.

Chip Saltsman, a GOP strategist, said the debate over renaming military institutions is politically tricky for Republicans because it divides their base more so than Democrats.

“I think it probably splits more Republican primary voters,” he said, warning it could be a dangerous issue. “I don’t think it’s something I would want to pin my political future on.”

"I don't know any Republicans or Democrats that think slavery was a good thing. But it seems like the line to me is: Do not under any circumstances rewrite history," Saltsman added. “You’re going to make a big group of people mad either way, and so you need to pick where you are on this and stand kind of tall on it.”

Even senators from the same state are taking different positions. Whereas Ernst voted for Warren’s amendment, Senate President Pro Tempore Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) said Monday he would likely support Hawley’s change to the provision.

“I don’t want to rewrite history,” Grassley said, while acknowledging he had “not absolutely made up [his] mind.”

Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman James Inhofe (R-Okla.) agrees with Hawley that Warren’s amendment should be softened to give the secretary of Defense discretion over whether to change base names or not. He also wants to give state and local authorities direct say on proposed changes in their communities.

But the biggest driving force for preserving the status quo is President Trump, who last week urged Senate Republicans “not to fall for this!”

Inhofe said he’s spoken extensively to Trump and that the president favors removing the mandate to change base names, effectively tying the Defense secretary’s hands.

Asked how Republicans would resolve the issue, Inhofe replied: “I wish I had that answer.”

He said there are several ways to change Warren’s amendment from stating the Defense secretary “shall” implement a plan to change base and installation names submitted by a special commission to “may,” providing significant latitude.

“You could do an amendment on the floor, you could do it in conference. There’s a lot of doing that. It’s not insurmountable,” he said.

Other Republicans, however, are warning that it could be very difficult to change Warren’s language, setting up a standoff with Trump. White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany told reporters last week that Trump would veto the $740 billion defense authorization bill if it required the renaming of bases.

Senate Republican Whip John Thune (S.D.) said Monday that changing Warren’s language would require 60 votes on the Senate floor unless a deal can be reached with Democrats to allow an amendment to pass with a simple majority.

With Republicans holding a slim 53-47 majority, getting 60 votes for changing the amendment appears unlikely given the GOP divisions.

An agreement with Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) is also considered unlikely.

“When it’s in the base bill, it becomes a much heavier lift on the floor. It sounds like we have some members who are maybe going to attempt to do that. We’ll see. It’s generated a lot of discussion, and we’ll see where that leads,” Thune said.

Thune said the defense policy bill will probably come to the Senate floor the week of June 29. The preliminary procedural motions, however, could come to the floor at the end of next week, he said.

Changing or removing Warren’s amendment in a Senate-House conference committee would also be a difficult task because the House version of the defense bill is expected to include language similar to Warren’s provision.

Reps. Anthony Brown (D-Md.), an African American Army veteran, and Don Bacon (R-Neb.), an Air Force veteran, are introducing legislation to create a commission within a year to rename bases and other military property.

“Removing these names is another step in an honest accounting of our history and an expression that we continue to strive to form a more perfect union,” Brown said in a statement to The Baltimore Sun last week.

Brown’s office says he will propose an amendment to the Defense authorization bill when the House Armed Services Committee considers its version July 1.

Traditionally, when both chambers pass bills containing highly similar provisions, they are kept in the final version that goes to the president’s desk.

The debate is expected to heat up over the next few weeks as the Senate defense bill makes its way to the floor for a vote. For many opponents of Warren’s amendment, the concern involves worries about a slippery slope toward broader renaming efforts.

Greg Weiner, an associate professor of political science at Assumption University in Massachusetts, argued there’s a big difference between the Founding Fathers, who owned slaves, and Confederate generals.

No. 2 GOP senator: Time to look at changing Confederate-named bases Warren endorses Engel challenger in New York primary “Many of our constitutional framers — [George] Washington and [James] Madison, among others — held views on enslavement that are repugnant to us today. But we celebrate them for other reasons and believe, in the balance, that their virtues outweigh their sins and make them worthy of enduring honor,” he said.

“There is no such larger or balancing context for Confederate generals,” he added. “The only reason these bases were named for them was to celebrate their armed rebellion against the United States.”

“Bottom line: a statue of man who fought for slavery is no better than a statue of, say, Lenin.

That is an interesting comment.

Here's what a real antifa member said:

Dear Dr. Scott:

Respecting your August 1 inquiry calling attention to my often expressed admiration for General Robert E. Lee, I would say, first, that we need to understand that at the time of the War between the States the issue of secession had remained unresolved for more than 70 years. Men of probity, character, public standing and unquestioned loyalty, both North and South, had disagreed over this issue as a matter of principle from the day our Constitution was adopted.

General Robert E. Lee was, in my estimation, one of the supremely gifted men produced by our Nation. He believed unswervingly in the Constitutional validity of his cause which until 1865 was still an arguable question in America; he was a poised and inspiring leader, true to the high trust reposed in him by millions of his fellow citizens; he was thoughtful yet demanding of his officers and men, forbearing with captured enemies but ingenious, unrelenting and personally courageous in battle, and never disheartened by a reverse or obstacle. Through all his many trials, he remained selfless almost to a fault and unfailing in his faith in God. Taken altogether, he was noble as a leader and as a man, and unsullied as I read the pages of our history.

From deep conviction, I simply say this: a nation of men of Lee’s calibre would be unconquerable in spirit and soul. Indeed, to the degree that present-day American youth will strive to emulate his rare qualities, including his devotion to this land as revealed in his painstaking efforts to help heal the Nation’s wounds once the bitter struggle was over, we, in our own time of danger in a divided world, will be strengthened and our love of freedom sustained.

Such are the reasons that I proudly display the picture of this great American on my office wall.

Sincerely,

Dwight D. Eisenhower

Actually it was treason. That's why they received a presidential pardon. In fact they were warned thirty years earlier by another President that secession was treason;

"The laws of the United States must be executed. I have no discretionary power on the subject-my duty is emphatically pronounced in the Constitution. Those who told you that you might peaceably prevent their execution, deceived you-they could not have been deceived themselves. They know that a forcible opposition could alone prevent the execution of the laws, and they know that such opposition must be repelled. Their object is disunion, hut be not deceived by names; disunion, by armed force, is TREASON."

Lincoln, on the other hand, was carrying out his constitutional duty to suppress insurrection. This duty is spelled out in the constitution and the means to do so was later delegated to the executive branch by congress in the militia acts of 1792 and 1795.

Actually it was not treason. States are sovereign and have the right to unilateral secession. That’s why nobody - not even Jefferson Davis was prosecuted for Treason.

“If you bring these [Confederate] leaders to trial it will condemn the North, for by the Constitution secession is not rebellion. Lincoln wanted Davis to escape, and he was right. His capture was a mistake. His trial will be a greater one.” Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase, July 1867 (Foote, The Civil War, Vol. 3, p. 765)

“If you bring these leaders to trial, it will condemn the North, for by the Constitution, secession is not a rebellion. His [Jefferson Davis] capture was a mistake. His trial will be a greater one. We cannot convict him of treason” Chief Justice Salmon P Chase [as quoted by Herman S. Frey, in Jefferson Davis, Frey Enterprises, 1977, pp. 69-72]

I’ve seen that quote cited several times, yet have never been able to find where it originally came from. I find it highly unlikely that the man who said this; “Constitution, in all its provisions, looks to an indestructible Union composed of indestructible States.” as the Chief Justice of the supreme court would have stated secession was not rebellion.

I have found that Chase did not want Davis brought to trial, but not for the reason the quote states. He believed that the 14th Amendment already punished Davis, and the other rebel leaders, by stripping them of their voting rights. So it would be double jeopardy to also convict him in court.
Case of Davis, 7 F. Cas. 63, 102 (C.C.D. Va. 1867)

Nevertheless, the fact still stands that the southern rebels were pardoned for committing treason by Andrew Jackson. And that Davis was pardoned by President Carter in 1978. So they might never have been convicted of treason, but they did commit it and were pardoned for it.

I provided two sources for the quote. The fact remains that the states are sovereign. That they never delegated the power to the federal government to prevent each state from unilaterally seceding, and that the 10th amendment makes clear that any powers not delegated to the federal government by the states remains with the states.

In addition to that, 3 states passed express provisos openly stating at the time of ratification of the constitution, that they retained the power of unilateral secession. Included in that were the two biggest and most powerful states which happened to be the leaders of the two sections of the then 13 states. Every state understood itself to have that right.

There is no provision in the constitution which allows the federal government to prevent it. Secession is not treason. The union is voluntary and is based on consent.

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