Congress honors Japanese American internment resister with gold medal
S. 338 — Fred Korematsu Congressional Gold Medal Act of 2025 · Filed by Mazie Hirono (D-HI) · 22 cosponsors · Introduced Jan 30, 2025 · Referred to committee
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What it does
This bill authorizes Congress to award a posthumous Congressional Gold Medal to Fred Korematsu, the Japanese American civil rights hero who challenged the internment of 120,000 Japanese Americans during World War II. The medal recognizes his courage in refusing to comply with the forced removal order, his decades-long fight to overturn his conviction after the government was found to have deliberately misled the Supreme Court, and his lifelong advocacy for civil liberties. The Treasury Department will design and strike the medal, which will be housed at the Smithsonian Institution.
Why we flagged it
The bill's sole operative function is to authorize a single commemorative gold medal honoring a deceased civil rights pioneer. It is a straightforward memorial measure with no regulatory, fiscal, or policy mechanism beyond the medal itself.
What the text implies
- The extensive findings section (25 subsections) creates an official congressional record of Japanese American internment as a grave constitutional violation and government misconduct, reinforcing legal and historical precedent against racial profiling and emergency-powers abuse.
- By naming Korematsu alongside Plessy, Brown, and Parks in the legislative record, Congress elevates him to the pantheon of civil rights martyrs, potentially influencing how courts and policymakers view racial-justice claims in future litigation.
- The bill's emphasis on government deception (deliberate withholding of evidence from the Supreme Court) establishes a documented pattern of executive misconduct that may inform judicial scrutiny of national-security claims in future cases.
Section numbers refer to the bill text the analysis read — linked under Primary records below.
Who it affects
Citizens gain a public, permanent commemoration of a pivotal civil rights figure and a historical record of government wrongdoing (forced internment, deliberate court deception) that serves as a civic warning. The medal is a symbolic acknowledgment of injustice and a reinforcement of constitutional values; cost is negligible and offset by bronze-medal sales.
Named in the bill
Fred Korematsu, U.S. Treasury Department, Smithsonian Institution, National Portrait Gallery, U.S. Mint Public Enterprise Fund, Congress, Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs
Where it stands
22 cosponsors: 19 Democrats, 2 Republicans, 1 Independents.
- Jan 30, 2025 — Introduced · Congress.gov: “Introduced in Senate”
- Jan 30, 2025 — Referred to Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs · Congress.gov: “Read twice and referred to the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs”
Dates and quoted wording are Congress.gov's action record; the timeline shows status changes, not every procedural step.
Money around this bill
1 lobbying clients named this bill on 1 disclosure filings across 1 quarter, Mar 2026 to Mar 2026. Those filings disclosed $15,000 in lobbying spend. A filing names 28 bills on average, so that figure is what each filing reported, not a share belonging to this bill.
More lobbying clients named this bill than 0% of bills with at least one filing.
Mazie Hirono, the sponsor, reported $44,000 in PAC receipts in the 2026 cycle.
- Due Process Institute — $15,000 on 1 filing
Lobbying Disclosure Act filings through Jun 1, 2026. A filing shows who paid to lobby on a bill it names, not what changed.
How this was measured
Analysis — Quorum's AI read the bill text published by Congress.gov (11,223 characters) on Jun 3, 2026. Section numbers in the findings refer to that text, linked below; transparency and hidden-provision scores are compared against the median of 16,222 analysed bills.
Status and sponsors — Congress.gov's bill record — actions, committee referrals and cosponsors — loaded nightly. The timeline shows status changes, not every procedural action.
Money — Senate Lobbying Disclosure Act filings whose specific-issue field names this bill for quarters ending Mar 2026 to Mar 2026. A filing's amount is reported whole beside the median number of bills a filing names; it is never divided across them. PAC receipts are FEC-reported contributions to the sponsor's candidate committee in the 2026 cycle.
As of — lobbying records through Jun 1, 2026 · page rendered 2026-10-20.
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