git rebase with rebase-merges option creates bad ref names

[Robert Blenis <rblenis@xxxxxxxxx>]

using command 'git rebase -i -r DEST' fails with "error: refusing to
update ref with bad name 'refs/rewritten/Release-170-1020-Rev-D.'"
git is taking the commit message and turning it into a reference name
that is not valid (because of the period in the message)! This
requires a bunch of manual editing of the todo list. git version
2.24.0
Thank you,
Robert Blenis