Bill Text: CA AJR26 | 2015-2016 | Regular Session | Chaptered
Bill Title: Removal of the Confederate flag and symbols.
Spectrum: Partisan Bill (Democrat 17-0)
Status: (Passed) 2015-09-21 - Chaptered by Secretary of State - Res. Chapter 196, Statutes of 2015. [AJR26 Detail]
Download: California-2015-AJR26-Chaptered.html
BILL NUMBER: AJR 26 CHAPTERED
BILL TEXT
RESOLUTION CHAPTER 196
FILED WITH SECRETARY OF STATE SEPTEMBER 21, 2015
ADOPTED IN SENATE SEPTEMBER 4, 2015
ADOPTED IN ASSEMBLY SEPTEMBER 8, 2015
AMENDED IN SENATE SEPTEMBER 1, 2015
AMENDED IN ASSEMBLY JULY 16, 2015
AMENDED IN ASSEMBLY JULY 8, 2015
INTRODUCED BY Assembly Member Weber
(Principal coauthors: Senators Hall and Mitchell)
(Coauthors: Assembly Members Alejo, Brown, Burke, Cooper, Eggman,
Cristina Garcia, Gipson, Gonzalez, Holden, Jones-Sawyer, McCarty,
Ridley-Thomas, and Thurmond)
(Coauthor: Senator Glazer)
JUNE 30, 2015
Relative to the Confederate flag and symbols.
LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL'S DIGEST
AJR 26, Weber. Removal of the Confederate flag and symbols.
This measure would, among other things, memorialize the Congress
of the United States to ban the sale or display of any Confederate
flag, including the Confederate Battle Flag, on federal property and
encourage states to ban the use of Confederate States of America
symbolism from state flags, seals, and symbols, and would encourage
the donation of Confederate artifacts to museums.
WHEREAS, According to the 1860 United States Census, the United
States population was 31,443,321. The total number of slaves in the
Lower South was 2,312,352, comprising 47 percent of the total
population, and the total number of slaves in the Upper South was
1,208,758, comprising 29 percent of the total population; and
WHEREAS, South Carolina had a clear Black majority from about 1708
through most of the 18th century. By 1720, there were approximately
18,000 people living in South Carolina and 65 percent of those were
African American slaves. South Carolina's slave population grew to
match the success of its rice culture. Whereas in 1790, there were
slightly more Whites than Blacks, with 140,178 Whites and 108,896
Blacks living in South Carolina. By 1860, the Black population had
grown, with 291,300 Whites and 412,320 Blacks, to nearly double the
White population; and
WHEREAS, The Southern United States, including the States of
Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North
Carolina, Texas, West Virginia, Virginia, and South Carolina, seceded
from the greater union in 1860 to join the Confederate States of
America under President Jefferson Davis and General Robert E. Lee;
and
WHEREAS, The symbolism of the Confederate flag when the states
seceded in 1860 represented, in its personification, secession and
treason; and
WHEREAS, The first official national flag of the Confederacy,
often called the Stars and Bars, was flown from March 4, 1861, to May
1, 1863, inclusive. The Stars and Bars flag was adopted March 4,
1861, in the first temporary national capital of Montgomery, Alabama,
and was raised over the dome of that first Confederate Capitol; and
WHEREAS, At the First Battle of Manassas, the first battle of the
Civil War, the similarity between the Stars and Bars and the Stars
and Stripes caused confusion and military problems. Regiments carried
flags to help commanders observe and assess battles in the warfare
of the era. At a distance, the two national flags were hard to tell
apart. In addition, Confederate regiments carried many other flags,
which added to the possibility of confusion; and
WHEREAS, After the battle, General Pierre Gustave Toutant
Beauregard, a prominent general of the Confederate States Army during
the Civil War, wrote that he was resolved then to have the
Confederate flag changed if possible, or to adopt for his command a
"battle flag," the Stars and Bars, that would be entirely different
from any state or federal flag. His aide William Porcher Miles, the
former chair of the Committee on the Flag and Seal, described his
rejected national flag design to Beauregard. Miles also told the
Committee on the Flag and Seal about the general's complaints and
request for the national flag to be changed. The committee rejected
this idea by a four to one vote, after which Beauregard proposed the
idea of having two flags. He described the idea in a letter to his
commander General Joseph E. Johnston: "How would it do for us to
address the War Dept. on the subject for a supply of Regimental or
badge flags made of red with two blue bars crossing each other
diagonally on which shall be introduced the stars. ... We would then
on the field of battle know our friends from our enemies"; and
WHEREAS, Although the soldiers of the Confederacy were never tried
by the United States government after the Civil War, Jefferson Davis
and General Robert E. Lee were indicted and later acquitted of all
charges by President Andrew Johnson as he left office in 1869; and
WHEREAS, After the Civil War ended, groups such as the Ku Klux
Klan were formed to promote White supremacy and racial hatred. The Ku
Klux Klan, perhaps the most infamous, was one of the first groups to
continue using the Confederate flag after the war. The Ku Klux Klan
rallied others still vexed after the war to instill fear and spout
hate against freed African Americans; and
WHEREAS, The flag was later resurrected in the 1950s to rally
resistance to the Civil Rights movement and support the South's
desire to maintain segregation and further the policies of Jim Crow;
and
WHEREAS, In South Carolina, the Confederate flag was moved to the
top of their State Capitol building in 1962, after President John F.
Kennedy called on the Congress of the United States to end poll taxes
and literacy tests for voting, and the United States Supreme Court
struck down segregation in public transportation; and
WHEREAS, According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, there are
788 "hate groups" in the United States. Of these, 57 are located in
the State of California, which is the highest of any state. There are
a total of 283 of these hate groups in the former Confederate
states. Nineteen of these hate groups reside in South Carolina. Of
these 19 hate groups, 16 use the Confederate flag as one of their
symbols. These hate groups include the Ku Klux Klan, Neo-Nazis, and
Neo-Confederates; and
WHEREAS, African Americans make up 15.6 percent of the population
of the United States, or 45 million people, but in 2013, they were
victims of one-third of all hate crimes in the United States, which
is the highest number of any group in America; and
WHEREAS, On June 17, 2015, Dylann Roof went to Emanuel AME Church
in Charleston, South Carolina, and opened fire during a Wednesday
Bible study, killing nine of the church's attendees; and
WHEREAS, Over the last five years, friends of Dylann Roof had seen
him become increasingly aligned with White supremacist ideologies.
They observed his behavior becoming more fanatical than that of the
most notorious hate groups in his native South Carolina. Dylann Roof
believed that it was up to him to do the work that other hate groups
were failing to do. Dylann Roof believed that African Americans were
"stupid and violent" people and viewed Hispanics and Latinos as the
"enemy"; and
WHEREAS, Dylann Roof has been photographed on various occasions
with the same Confederate flag that many of these hate groups proudly
display; and
WHEREAS, Sixty-nine percent of those surveyed by Public Policy
Polling believe that the shooting attack at Emanuel AME Church in
Charleston, South Carolina, was a hate crime and 34 percent surveyed
believe it was a form of terrorism; and
WHEREAS, Since the end of the Civil War, private and official use
of the Confederacy's flags, and of flags with derivative designs, has
continued and generated philosophical, political, cultural, and
racial controversy in the United States. These include flags
displayed in states, cities, towns, counties, schools, colleges, or
universities, or by private organizations, associations, or by
individuals; and
WHEREAS, In some American states the Confederate flag is given the
same protection from burning and desecration as the United States
flag. It is protected from being publicly mutilated, defiled, or
otherwise cast in contempt by the laws of five states: Florida,
Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, and South Carolina. However, laws
banning the desecration of any flag, even if technically remaining in
effect, were ruled unconstitutional in 1989 by the United States
Supreme Court in Texas v. Johnson and are not enforceable; and
WHEREAS, In 2000, South Carolina passed a bill to remove the
Confederate flag from the top of the state house dome. It had been
placed there since the early 1960s by an all-White South Carolina
Legislature to mark the 100th anniversary of the Civil War. The flag
was moved to the north end of the state house as part of a
compromise. However, to this day, there have been protests to have
the flag removed from there as well; and
WHEREAS, To many groups, especially African Americans, the
Confederate flag is a symbol of hate, racism, exclusion, oppression,
and violence. Its symbolism and history are directly linked to the
enslavement, torture, and murder of millions of African Americans;
and
WHEREAS, Today, as in the past, public display of the Confederate
flag is believed to instill fear, intimidation, and a direct threat
of violence towards others, though a minute number of groups
disagree, claiming that the Confederate flag commemorates Southern
heritage; and
WHEREAS, In 2014, the State of California, through the enactment
of Assembly Bill 2444, became the first state to ban the state sale
and display of the Confederate flag. The State of California may not
sell or display the Battle Flag of the Confederacy, also referred to
as the Stars and Bars, or any similar image, or tangible personal
property inscribed with that image unless the image appears in a
book, digital medium, or state museum that serves an educational or
historical purpose; and
WHEREAS, On June 22, 2015, Governor Nikki Haley of South Carolina
called upon her state to remove the Confederate flag from the capitol
grounds in the wake of the Emanuel AME Church shooting; now,
therefore, be it
Resolved by the Assembly and the Senate of the State of
California, jointly, That the Legislature of California encourages
the United States Congress to identify the states that have a
Confederate symbol embedded into their state's flag; and be it
further
Resolved, That the Legislature memorializes the United States
Congress to encourage states to ban the use of the former Confederate
States of America symbolism and seals from all state flags, seals,
and symbols; and be it further
Resolved, That the Legislature memorializes the United States
Congress to ban the sale and display of any Confederate flag,
including the Confederate Battle Flag, on federally owned properties
and buildings and to urge those states that sell or display the flag
at their capitols to have the flag removed; and be it further
Resolved, That the Legislature encourages the United States
Congress to encourage businesses to urge their states to take down
any Confederate flag, including the Confederate Battle Flag, from
their capitols; and be it further
Resolved, That the Legislature encourages the donation of any
effects representing the former Confederate States of America to
local, state, and national museums; and be it further
Resolved, That the Chief Clerk of the Assembly transmit copies of
this resolution to the President and Vice President of the United
States, to the Speaker of the House of Representatives, to the
Minority Leader of the House of Representatives, to the Majority
Leader of the Senate, to the Minority Leader of the Senate, to each
Senator and Representative from California, and to the governors of
the southern states including Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia,
Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee,
Texas, and Virginia.
