Momentum is beginning to build behind a proposal to rename the Russell Senate Office Building after the late Sen. John McCain (R-AZ).
“Nothing will overcome the loss of Senator McCain, but so that generations remember him I will be introducing a resolution to rename the Russell building after him,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said in a statement following McCain’s death Saturday night.
Sen. Jeff Flake (R-AZ) supported the effort on CBS’ “Face the Nation” the next day.
“I want to be the first Republican co-sponsor for that resolution,” he said, adding: “John McCain had his office just right near mine in the Russell building. That’s where he was his entire time. I think that that’s a fitting tribute.”
And House minority leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) supported Schumer’s proposal in an interview on ABC’s “This Week.”
“I think it would be a great tribute, because then, for decades to come, everyone who came to Washington would know the very special place that John McCain has held, and will continue to hold, in our country,” she said.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) hasn’t weighed in on the proposal, but it would be up to the Senate itself — without any input from the President, who made the late Arizona senator one of his more prominent foils — to decide on a re-naming.
Both McCain’s office and the offices of the Senate Armed Services Committee, of which he served as chairman since 2015, are housed in the building, Roll Call noted.
Completed in 1909, the building was named after Sen. Richard Russell (D-GA) in 1972, a year after Russell’s death. The Georgia Democrat, a segregationist, served in the Senate for 38 years.
