Renaming of Airport Fuels Debate

Nearly a decade after returning to his beloved California, Ronald Reagan’s presence continues to loom large over the nation’s capital.

And in what is shaping up as the first knockdown, drag-out battle of this year’s congressional session, an emotionally charged, partisan debate is raging over a Republican proposal to rename Washington National Airport after the 40th president.

Whatever the outcome, the ill will engendered by the controversy threatens the ability of Congress to act quickly on a long public agenda at a time when it already is distracted by the sexual allegations against President Clinton.

Speaking for his GOP colleagues, Sen. John McCain of Arizona warned: “We feel very strongly about this issue . . . and if we get hung up on this thing and we are not able to go ahead and honor Ronald Reagan on his birthday, it’s going to start things off on a very bad note.”

The hope of the Republican-dominated Congress is to ram through the proposal in time to mark Reagan’s 87th birthday on Friday.

Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.), in a reference to Reagan’s battle with the advanced stages of Alzheimer’s disease, said: “The timing is critical,” especially with the former president “sort of riding off into the sunset.”

The proposal has run into stiff resistance from some Democrats who want, among other things, to examine the entire process by which individuals are accorded such honor.

Egging on the Democrats from the sidelines is the 14,000-member National Air Traffic Controllers Assn., which is still livid at Reagan for having responded to a 1981 union strike by firing about 11,000 of its members.

“I’d rather have a hot poker in my eye than have an airport named after him,” said Randy Schwitz, the union’s vice president. “To name a major U.S. airport after Reagan would be a slap in the face to today’s controllers and the many thousands terminated who are still on the street waiting to be rehired by the Federal Aviation Administration.”

Democrats say they oppose the name change for a host of other reasons. According to Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.), some worry about the cost associated with the name change (changing road signs, for instance, would cost an estimated $60,000).

Daschle also noted that a gigantic new federal building on Pennsylvania Avenue near the White House has been named for Reagan--”the largest non-defense building in the country, a government building, a beautiful building, a building that will last for centuries, a building dedicated to permanence.”

In rebuttal, Lott said: “It’s not as if we only name one facility. I don’t know how many [Franklin D.] Roosevelt monuments and memorials we have.”

Lott also said he considers it “a ridiculous idea” to wait until someone dies before naming a building after him. “What good is it to them then? Do they have any idea how much they meant to us then?”

Sen. Paul Coverdell (R-Ga.), the measure’s chief sponsor, said he finds the Democratic opposition “astounding” and “unfortunate.”

After Senate Democrats succeeded last week in stalling action on the legislation to rename the capital’s 56-year-old airport--which is actually across the river in northern Virginia--a host of Republicans rushed to the chamber with laudatory remarks about Reagan’s legacy.

Lott termed Reagan the “greatest president of this century by far.”

Coverdell argued that the tribute would befit a man responsible for the demise of “the evil empire” of communism. Coverdell also reminded his colleagues across the aisle that Reagan was once a Democrat.

Sen. Tim Johnson (D-S.D.) said he opposes the renaming of National in part because the ribbon has not even been cut to officially dedicate the Reagan building.

He also said it would be “a terrible mistake” to set a precedent whereby “whoever is in the majority comes in and changes the names of buildings.”

Democrats sought permission to add to the Reagan measure an amendment to reform the Internal Revenue Service, a diversionary tactic that would have bogged the bill down.

That move infuriated Coverdell, who called it “the definition of pettiness. . . . Maybe this is an indication of just how cynical this city has become from top to bottom.”

While the debate raged, McCain’s office received a fax from a C-SPAN viewer pledging to put up the $60,000 needed to cover changing road signs. “We’re receiving call after call,” McCain reported.

For all the rhetoric, the core dispute may be straightforward.

One Senate Democratic aide said some of his party’s senators simply do not believe Reagan deserves to be further honored. But they are reluctant to say so publicly.

Still, most congressional watchers expect that the measure will clear both the House and Senate.