Budowsky: The McCain Senate Office Building

Senators should rename the Russell Senate Office Building the McCain Senate Office Building. By doing so, they would send a powerful message to voters, telling them, in effect, “We hear you.”  

By renaming the building after the late Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), Democrats would be making a gesture of bipartisan good faith. Republicans who support renaming would be bolstering the idea of making the Senate an occasional oasis of bipartisanship and answering midterm voters’ pleas. 

If McCain were here, I believe he would be a rousing bipartisan supporter of democracy in Ukraine and might well be trying to get back into the Navy to join the fight. He would be pushing for bipartisanship every hour of every day on issues to help our people.  

Several months ago, paraphrasing what then-Sen. John Kennedy (D-Mass.) said about the Cold War during the 1950s, I wrote that great powers (and great parties) are like magnets. They can attract. They can also repel. During the midterms, the Republicans became one of the most repellant parties in political history, which created one of the epic political disasters in modern history. 

Can anyone think of anything more politically stupid and self-destructive than the Republican candidate for governor of Arizona, Kari Lake, offering repeated ugly and sarcastic attacks against McCain, who represented Arizona in Congress for 35 years?  

For today, let’s focus on the Senate. Republicans will probably control the House with a small and unpleasant majority. The Senate is different. The Senate offers President Biden, Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Senate Democrats a golden opportunity to seek some degree of bipartisanship — in good faith — with a significant number of Senate Republicans. 

Voters want leaders who try to work together to help them in their daily lives, facing their daily challenges. Voters do not want hyper-partisanship or claims of victory. They want to know: How will you help us when we are hurting? 

If there was one political leader who embodies the good faith and positive legislative spirit that can get bipartisan results in Washington, it was McCain.  

In 2018, after McCain passed away, Schumer sought to rename the Russell Senate Office Building the McCain Senate Building. 

At that time, there was a Republican president in office who waged a bizarre and relentless vendetta against the great American hero. 

Many Republicans now feel that president — Donald Trump — did grave damage to their party. My guess is that today, if the McCain Senate Office Building proposal were revived, it would pass with a significant number of Republican votes and strong bipartisan majority that would be widely applauded by many voters. 

Imagine, every day people walking into the McCain Senate Office Building and thinking for a moment of McCain.   

Imagine if every day when Senate interns or pages or young staff, or moms and dads with their sons and daughters, enter the building they would think for a moment of the senator who embodied intense patriotic heroism; honorable political independence; deep integrity; public service; and a commitment to fight for the values he believes in, alongside a willingness to reach across the aisle with a bipartisan spirit to make the country better on any given day. 

Senators, there’s no better way to show voters you are hearing them by honoring McCain in this way.   

Budowsky was an aide to former Sen. Lloyd Bentsen (D-Texas) and former Rep. Bill Alexander (D-Ark.), who was chief deputy majority whip of the House of Representatives.