Rename Reagan Airport Back to Washington National?

PHOTOS: Reagan National Airport tower courtesy of Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority; photo of Denali taken by White House from Air Force One, official White House photo by Pete Souza

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Speaker of the House John Boehner, a Republican from Ohio, was not too pleased when President Obama recently announced his administration was changing the name of Mount McKinley in Alaska to Denali, named for Alaska natives.

Boehner wasn’t happy that the name of a fellow Ohioan (William McKinley of Ohio was the 25th president of the United States) was being erased from history. “There is a reason President McKinley’s name has served atop the highest peak in North America for more than 100 years, and that is because it is a testament to his great legacy,” the Speaker said in a statement.

Now, a liberal group has stepped in and has started an online petition — “Tell Speaker Boehner: Rename Ronald Reagan airport back to Washington National Airport” — to see if Boehner will act to change the name of Reagan National Airport back to Washington National Airport, named for the first president of the United States, George Washington, who lived nearby at his estate in Mount Vernon.

The group leading the name change charge is CREDO Action, the action arm of CREDO Mobile, a cell phone company based in San Francisco. The group’s causes include financial reform, environmental protection, food policy, protecting a woman’s right to choose, and more.

Here’s what they say in their petition:

The honoring of this mountain’s original name, and the native people who have inhabited that land for generations, was long overdue. But that hasn’t stopped John Boehner and fellow Republican members of Congress from staging political outrage and fomenting right-wing anger.

That’s why it’s helpful to send them a reminder that, in a brazen political act at that time, Republicans in Congress themselves pushed through legislation renaming an airport already named after America’s first president, George Washington. And unlike President Obama’s decision, which honors the local people and culture surrounding that landmark, the renaming of Washington National airport was met with resistance from local Virginia residents and leaders. It was also strongly opposed by airport workers themselves, given President Reagan’s role in breaking the air traffic controllers’ union and mass firing 11,000 workers.3, 4 Renaming the airport also resulted in significant costs that were left to local government in Virginia to cover.5

Given Speaker Boehner’s current outrage and disappointment at President Obama’s decision to rename Mount McKinley, it’s time to give him the opportunity to make up for his own past mistakes. Sign the petition and tell John Boehner he needs to be consistent when it comes to naming America’s landmarks.

As of Tuesday afternoon, the petition has more than 70,000 signatures. What do you think? Should the airport name be changed back or left “as is”?