Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-New York, says he'll introduce a resolution to rename the Russell Senate Office Building in Washington for Sen. John McCain....No comment so far from Dinesh D'Souza, whose well-remunerated trolling career is focused these days on arguing that Democrats remain the party of segregation and racism. I'm not sure how D'Souza would explain a proposal from a Democrat to strip a Democratic segregationist of this honor.
At a press conference in New York on Sunday, Schumer added that he "always felt that we could more appropriately name the Richard Russell Office building and John McCain was the perfect person for that." He said that McCain was an "antidote when he saw bigotry" and "put a dagger through its heart."
The building is currently named Sen. Richard Brevard Russell Jr., a Democrat from Georgia who served from 1933 to 1971....
Russell, however, was as a leader of Southern opposition to the civil rights movement and an ardent supporter of segregation for decades. Russell often used parliamentary maneuvers to scuttle civil rights legislation like bills banning lynching and abolishing the poll tax, his Senate biography notes.
We're told the proposal has bipartisan support, though McCain's fellow Arizonan Jeff Flake, who's retiring, seems to be the only Republican who's publicly backed it. Mitch McConnell hasn't been heard from.
Talking Points Memo tells us that "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." Would senators hesitate? According to a recent Fox poll, only 41% of rank-and-file Republicans have a favorable opinion of McCain (among Democrats, the number is 60%). And, of course, Republican voters loathe Schumer. Could you get primaried if you're a Republican and you vote for this? I'm guessing that the GOP voter base isn't quite that rabid -- but if the proposal stalls, I won't be surprised.
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