A drawn-out battle to name a Las Vegas mountain peak after former President Reagan has ended in the Gipper’s favor in Nevada and now heads to Washington, where liberal protesters are expected mount a campaign to kill the proposal — for a second time.
Activists involved in the Reagan legacy project said they anticipate that the late Republican’s foes will try to derail Nevada’s request just like they blocked a 2010 proposal passed by New Hampshire’s legislature to name a peak in the White Mountains after the 40th president.
But they are cautiously optimistic, having overcome last-minute opposition and succeeded in changing the name of Nevada’s 4,052-foot Frenchman Mountain to Mount Reagan. The Nevada State Board on Geographic Names this month approved the change in a 5-2 vote.
The campaign now moves to Washington and the U.S. Board on Geographic Names, part of the Department of Interior, which vetoed the New Hampshire proposal.
Chuck Muth, head of the Mount Reagan Project, told Secrets that Reagan deserves better. “Ronald Reagan is the only president to have performed professionally on the Las Vegas Strip, yet there is nothing of significance named after the Gipper in Las Vegas. What better remembrance than naming a mountaintop after the 40th president that looks down over perhaps the shiniest city in the land?”
Reagan biographer Craig Shirley agreed. “More than ever, Americans are coming to appreciate Reagan’s greatness, especially after the failed presidencies which preceded him and followed him. So we reserved this privilege for our greatest presidents.”
DEM PARTY BOSS SAYS OBAMACARE ‘NOT SACRED’
One of President Obama’s biggest health care fans in Congress, Florida Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, is pushing for changes to Obamacare, counseling Democrats that “we must not treat every minute provision in the law as sacred.”
In a move that might surprise many in her party, Wasserman Schultz, who is also the head of the Democratic National Committee, said the Obamacare supporters currently fighting GOP demands to defund the health care act “should be open to suggestions for improving the law.”
What’s more, “that engagement certainly should include past critics of the law,” the popular Democrat urges in her upcoming policy book, “For the Next Generation,” to be released on Oct. 15. Publisher St. Martin’s Press provided Secrets with an advance copy.
Her fear: Early problems with Obamacare will turn the public off to the president’s biggest success. “It comes down to making incremental improvements, borrowing the best ideas from state governments and foreign nations,” she wrote. “It’s wonky, requiring intensive study and critical thinking rather than simple sound bites from the campaign stump.”
LABOR OF LOVE AS DEPARTMENT HOSTS GAY WEDDING
In the latest sign of just how far the administration has embraced same-sex marriage and the expansion of federal benefits to married gay couples, the Department of Labor headquarters building recently hosted a rooftop wedding between a worker and his partner.
Officials confirmed the wedding late last week between a regional solicitor and his longtime mate. A reception in a conference room followed. No names were offered.
It is believed to be the first same-sex marriage in a Cabinet-level headquarters building and came on the same day that the department ordered that legally married same-sex couples be offered the same federal rights as other married couples, even if they live in states that don’t recognize their union.
New caucus to protect toys from misfit rules
In a city where nearly every group, from bourbon makers to cement mixers, have a “caucus” of congressional supporters, toys have long been left out, just like those on the “Island of Misfit Toys” in the Burl Ives classic, “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.”
Not anymore. A new bipartisan Congressional Toy Caucus has just been launched, egged on by the $22 billion industry that feels persecuted by burdensome federal regulations and overseas trade barriers.
“The toy industry is under fire,” said Rep. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn. “What we’re trying to do is keep this creativity and this production here, domestically based.”
According to the Toy Industry Association, federal agencies like the Consumer Product Safety Commission are loading up regulations on toy makers despite congressional criticism, and the administration isn’t doing enough to level the overseas trading field.
Paul Bedard, The Washington Examiner’s “Washington Secrets” columnist, can be contacted at [email protected].
