A Republican senator is proposing legislation in direct defiance of President Donald Trump.
Trump announced in his inaugural speech that he would seek to rename Alaska's Denali as part of his day-one actions, a move that would override the will of the state's Indigenous population and its elected leaders.
The president followed through on that plan and signed an executive order to rename North America's highest peak back to Mount McKinley. The executive order, titled “Restoring Names That Honor American Greatness,” was one of the first actions he took upon returning to the Oval Office — and sparked immediate backlash in Alaska, where the state Legislature passed a resolution urging Trump to keep the name Denali.
On Thursday, Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) proposed federal legislation that would do the same, Politico reported. Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-AK) co-sponsored the bill.
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“In Alaska, it’s Denali. … This isn’t a political issue — Alaskans from every walk of life have long been advocating for this mountain to be recognized by its true name,” Murkowski said in a statement, according to the outlet.
The bill comes a month after Murkowski said publicly, "Because the mountain was named 10,000 years ago by the Native people, the Athabascans in the area, and it is called Denali, which means the great one. So I would just suggest to President Trump, who wants to make everything great, we already have a great name for it, so we're gonna, we're gonna talk about it. I've already talked to him about it."
Trump's move comes after then-President Barack Obama in 2015 renamed Mount McKinley as Denali.