For a few hours on Wednesday morning, Google Maps got ahead of Congress, designating the Russell Senate Office Building the “McCain Senate Office Building” instead. A number of senators have advocated for the building to be renamed in honor of Arizona Republican John McCain, a naval aviator who spent five years as a prisoner of war in Vietnam before serving in Congress. McCain died of brain cancer over the weekend.
By 11:20 a.m. the name of the building had been corrected on the desktop version of Google Maps, though some testing within THE WEEKLY STANDARD offices indicated that the McCain Senate Office Building was coming up on some phones. Google users are able to add company names and other identifying information to addresses.
“We empower people to contribute their local knowledge to the map, but we recognize that there may be occasional inaccuracies or premature changes suggested by users,” Google said in a statement. “When this happens, we work to address as quickly as possible. We have implemented a fix for this issue that is rolling out now.”
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer introduced a resolution this week alongside McCain’s Arizona colleague, Jeff Flake, to name Russell after the late senator, whose office was in the building. “I’d like when little children visit the Senate and they say, ‘Who was John McCain?’—because the building was named after him—to have their parents and grandparents explain it to them,” Schumer said in a floor speech.
The building is currently named for Richard Russell, a New Deal Democrat who spent nearly 40 years in the Senate, where he sponsored legislation like the National School Lunch Act and served as chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee. Russell was a racist: He filibustered anti-lynching laws, staunchly opposed the desegregation of public schools, and protested the Civil Rights Act during the 1960s.
“It’s time that we recognize that as times change, so do our heroes,” Schumer said in his floor remarks.
His effort to rename the building in McCain’s honor has some support in both parties, but on Tuesday it appeared to hit a roadblock as a number of Republicans said they opposed the idea. According to Huffington Post’s Igor Bobic, Georgia Republican David Perdue argued that the building’s name shouldn’t be tampered with because Russell “was a big supporter of the Great Society, the War on Poverty. Now, we all know those things failed, but he was a big champion of them.”
“This was a guy who was a giant in the Senate. This renaming thing because of one issue, it’s somewhat troubling,” he added.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell announced on the Senate floor on Tuesday that he would appoint a panel of senators to examine the best ways to pay respect to McCain. These options could include naming the Senate Armed Services Committee hearing room after McCain, or to hang a portrait of him in the Senate reception room next to the chamber, where portraits of Henry Clay and a couple of other influential senators already hang.
McCain’s best friend, South Carolina Republican Lindsey Graham, suggested that the Senate pass a new Russia sanctions bill in McCain’s honor, or that the Capitol Visitor Center be named for him. “What a great way to be exposed to the Capitol by hearing the life story of John McCain,” Graham told reporters, according to the AP. “Instead of worrying about what to name for him… let’s be more like him,” Graham added.
