Sen. John Kennedy proposed Tuesday renaming all military bases after Medal of Honor recipients rather than only those named after Confederate leaders.
Mr. Kennedy, Louisiana Republican, said to focus solely on the history of Confederates “picks on the South unfairly.”
“I think history will show that in the 18th century, in the 19th century, and well into the 20th century, there were many non-Confederate general, soldiers and others in both the South and the North that practiced racial discrimination, anti-Semitism and misogyny,” he said.
“I think to be fair about it we should address every military installation,” Mr. Kennedy added. “Times change. History doesn’t.”
Mr. Kennedy said he is going to offer the proposal as a substitute for the one approved by the Senate Armed Services Committee last week that would require the Pentagon to look into changing the names of certain military assets.
The amendment will establish an eight-person commission that will “study and provide recommendations concerning the removal, names, symbols, displays, monuments, and paraphernalia that honor or commemorate the Confederate States of America, addressing an implementation plan, cost, and criteria for renaming, among other procedures.
The amendment has divided Senate Republicans, and President Trump is staunchly against renaming any military bases.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said that as a descendant of a Confederate member himself, he was fine with considering name changes.
“But what I do think is clearly a bridge too far is this nonsense that we have to airbrush the Capitol and scrub out everybody from years ago that has any connection to slavery,” he said.
Last week, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi wrote to the Joint Committee on the Library, which oversees the statues in the U.S. Capitol, to request the removal of 11 statues of Confederate icons.
“The halls of Congress are the very heart of our democracy,” wrote Mrs. Pelosi, California Democrat. “The statues in the Capitol should embody our highest ideals as Americans, expressing who we are and who are aspire to be as a nation. Monuments to men who advocated cruelty and barbarism to achieve such a plainly racist end are a grotesque affront to these ideals.”
Mr. McConnell and Sen. Roy Blunt, who chairs the committee, said the matter was not up to the speaker but to the states themselves.
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