Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer plans a resolution to rename the Russell Senate Office Building after late Sen. John McCain, saying that he has always felt there was a more appropriate way to name the building.
"As you go through life, you meet few truly great people. John McCain was one of them," the New York Democrat said in a statement Saturday night, just after McCain died, CBS News reports.
"His dedication to his country and the military were unsurpassed, and maybe most of all, he was a truth teller — never afraid to speak truth to power in an era where that has become all too rare. The Senate, the United States, and the world are lesser places without John McCain."
On Sunday, he emphasized that the building would be better named to honor McCain, as the late Arizona senator was an "antidote when he saw bigotry."
The building is named for late Sen. Richard Brevard Russell Jr., a Georgia Democrat who was in office from 1933 to 1971. He has been a controversial figure for years, as he lead Southern opposition to the civil rights movement and supported segregation, according to his Senate biography.
The Senate moved in 2009 to rename the building's Caucus Room after Sen. Ted Kennedy died in 2009 — nine years to the day that McCain died, and of the same form of brain cancer.
Arizona GOP Sen. Jeff Flake said Sunday he wants to be his party's first co-sponsor for the resolution, as it is a "fitting tribute" to his colleague.
"John McCain had his office just right near mine in the Russell building," said Flake. "That's where he was his entire time. I think that's a fitting tribute."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
© 2025 Newsmax. All rights reserved.