The highest peak in West Virginia, Nashville’s international airport and the Palm Beach County road that leads to Mar-a-Lago could all soon be named in honor of President Trump, if Republican lawmakers get their way.
Across the nation, at least 10 states are considering bills to name infrastructure and geographic landmarks in Trump’s honor. Those bills, introduced exclusively in Republican-controlled states, have sparked an at-times heated relitigation of Trump’s presidency, the Jan. 6 insurrection and his subsequent return to power.
In Arizona, lawmakers last week narrowly defeated a bill to name Route 260, which stretches from Cottonwood through Payson and Show Low, as the Donald J. Trump Highway. Democrats objected, stretching what might have been a routine rubber-stamp renaming into a contentious debate.
“You define yourself by your public statues and street names, and I wouldn’t want to see us define ourselves that way,” Sen. Lauren Kuby (D) told fellow lawmakers.
“This bill would have taken like three and a half minutes if we hadn’t had comments from the other side,” Sen. Vincent Leach (R) countered.
Other state efforts are still alive. West Virginia Del. Elias Coop-Gonzalez (R) has introduced a bill to rename Spruce Knob, the highest ridge in the Allegheny Mountains, as Trump Mountain.
In Tennessee, a pair of lawmakers have introduced legislation that would require Nashville’s international airport to be named for Trump. The bill is the latest salvo in a feud between the Republican legislature and Nashville’s Democratic leaders, who angered Republicans by backing out of a planned bid to host the 2020 GOP convention.
Florida Rep. Danny Alvarez (R) has introduced a bill to rename two stretches of Southern Boulevard in Palm Beach County for Trump. That road passes suburban strip malls and Palm Beach International Airport before crossing Lake Worth Lagoon to reach Mar-a-Lago.
Texas lawmakers have introduced a bill to rename a road in Harris County for Trump. Trump lost Harris County all three times he ran for president. Missouri lawmakers have proposed renaming two stretches of road — one in St. Charles County and another section of the state highway system, with exceptions for areas in Jackson County and St. Louis County, areas that voted for Democratic nominees.
Proposals to name roads after Trump are also advancing in Kentucky and Iowa.
In Oklahoma, Sen. Dana Prieto (R) wants to set aside a whole day to honor Trump. Prieto’s legislation would mark Nov. 5 — the anniversary of Trump’s re-election — as Donald J. Trump Day. His bill has won an endorsement from a state Senate committee.
Naming things and places after former presidents is a normal course of business in a country where a whole state bears the name of the first president.
At least 17 avenues, expressways and boulevards from California to Florida bear Barack Obama’s name. Scientists included Obama’s name in at least 13 newly discovered animals, from a bird in the Amazon to a sea slug and a Cuban bee.
And Trump himself already counts a highway in Oklahoma, an avenue in Hialeah, Fla., a species of sea urchin and a species of moths among his honors.
But those accolades typically don’t happen when a president is in office.
The effort to invoke Trump’s name extends to other legislative priorities as well. Oklahoma lawmakers are working on a bill to create a mass deportation fund to handle immigration cases, a fund that would be named in Trump’s honor.
Mississippi lawmakers have introduced three separate bills bearing Trump’s name — one on ban-the-box legislation, under which employers would be prohibited from asking job candidates about prior convictions; one on the restoration of voting rights for former felons; and one, introduced by Rep. Omeria Scott (D), that would expand early voting.
Blue states are not in as much of a rush to name things for the sitting president. Several have passed nonbinding resolutions objecting to Trump’s firing of federal workers, pardoning those convicted during the insurrection or renaming Alaska’s Denali in honor of William McKinley.
New York Sen. Kevin Parker (D) has taken closer aim at Trump: He has filed legislation banning some state agencies from investing in the Trump Organization. That bill has been referred to the Senate Civil Service and Pensions Committee.