The Navy will name its next destroyer after former Senate Armed Services Committee chairman, Sen. Carl Levin.
Sen. Angus King, I-Maine, said Wednesday at a hearing on Navy shipbuilding that it’s “great news” that DDG 120 will be named after the former Michigan Democrat who retired from Congress at the end of the last congressional session in 2014.
“That’s a wonderful decision. I certainly will look forward to participating in the commissioning of that ship. I just think that’s great news,” King said during a Senate Armed Services Seapower Subcommittee hearing. The ship will be built at Bath Iron Works in Maine.
Levin, who served in the Senate for 36 years, led the Senate Armed Services Committee from 2007 through his retirement.
“Thank you for that pleasant news item about the Carl Levin,” Rep. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., said. ” I think you saw heads nodding on both sides of the table. Sen. Levin is a distinguished and thoughtful American statesmen and was as even handed a chairman as I’ve ever served with during my 21 years in the House and Senate.”
Sen. Kelly Ayotte, R-N.H., also congratulated Levin, saying that she respected his leadership as chairman when she was a new member of the Senate Armed Services Committee.
“I can’t think of a better person to name the ship after,” she said.
While lawmakers on both sides of the aisle are on board with honoring their former colleague, the decision is likely to anger ship-naming purists, who object to naming ships after people while they are still alive. The issue was last raised when Navy Secretary Ray Mabus named a littoral combat ship after Gabrielle Giffords, the Arizona congresswoman who survived a gunshot to the head.
