BILL NUMBER: AJR 26 AMENDED
BILL TEXT
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, as amended, Weber. Removal of the Confederate flag and
symbols.
This measure would, among other things, memorialize the
President and Congress of the United States to ban the sale
or display of the Confederate flag on public
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.
Fiscal committee: no.
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 2,312,352,
comprising 47 percent of the total population
population, and the total number of slaves in
the Upper South was 1,208,758 1,208,758,
comprising 29 percent of the total population; and
WHEREAS, South Carolina had a clear Black majority from about
1,708 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 White and 108,896 Black, living in South
Carolina. By 1860 the black Black
population had grown, with 291,300 White and 412,320 Black, to more
than double of the white 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 American 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 Department
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, ... 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 Jackson 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, Whereas, African Americans make up 15.6 percent of the
population of the United States States,
or 45 million people, in 2013, they were victims of 32.7 percent, or
14,715,000, 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
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,
universities, private organizations, associations, and 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 is 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
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 22nd, 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 enact a ban on the sale and
display of the Confederate flag at all state capitols and federal,
state, and local government-owned property and buildings;
identify the states that have the Confederate symbol embedded
into their state's flag; and be it further
Resolved, That the Legislature encourages the United States
Congress to identify the states and their state flags that have the
Confederate symbol embedded into their state's flag and are using the
flag. Moreover, the Legislature encourages Congress to prohibit
these states from selling or displaying the Confederate flag at all
state capitols and other federal, state, and local government owned
properties and items, including drivers licenses, license plates, and
public buildings; and be it further
Resolved, That the Legislature encourages
memorializes the United States Congress to enact a
encourage states to ban on
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 the Confederate 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 located in the states that
have the Confederate symbols in their state flag to take them down;
to urge their states to take down the Confederate 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, Texas, West Virginia,
Virginia, and South Carolina.