Navy must explain how and why it names ships.
S. 5678 — NAMES Act · Filed by Cory Booker (D-NJ) · Introduced Sep 30, 2026 · Referred to committee
Your members of Congress
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What it does
The bill requires the Secretary of the Navy to make clear rules for naming and renaming ships. The Navy must get historical facts about people before naming a ship after them. The Navy must write down why it picked each name. It must share those reasons with Congress and the public. If the Navy does not follow advice from history experts, it must explain why.
Who it affects
Citizens and Congress get to see how the Navy picks ship names. The Navy must follow a formal process instead of making naming choices without explanation.
One thing to notice
Naming choices that used to happen quietly will now be public.
From the analysis of the bill text, linked under Primary records below.
Where it stands
- Sep 30, 2026 — Introduced · Congress.gov: “Introduced in Senate”
- Sep 30, 2026 — Referred to Senate Committee on Armed Services · Congress.gov: “Read twice and referred to the Committee on Armed Services”
Dates and quoted wording are Congress.gov's action record; the timeline shows status changes, not every procedural step.
Words to know
- Secretary of the Navy — The official who runs the Navy for the federal government.
- formal process — A set of steps that must be followed in order.
- history experts — People who study and know about events from the past.
How this was measured
Analysis — Quorum's AI read the bill text published by Congress.gov (1,039 characters) on Oct 16, 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.
As of — page rendered 2026-10-20.
“Navy must explain how and why it names ships.” QuorumCivic. https://share.quorumcivic.app/bill/119/s5678/simple Report an error
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