Bill to rename Nashville airport after Trump voted down in Tennessee House

A bill that would rename the Nashville International Airport after President Donald Trump received a bipartisan thumbs down from a committee in the Tennessee House of Representatives on Monday.

Rep. Todd Warner, R-Chapel Hill, presented the bill to the Naming and Designating Committee. The bill would cost the Metropolitan Nashville Airport Authority more than $10 million, according to the bill's fiscal note, a number Warner said was inflated.

Democrats and Republicans had different reasons for opposing the bill.

"Why would we name an airport after Trump at a time when he has made our airports and our flying more unsafe by firing hundreds of federal aviation employees at a time when air traffic controllers are understaffed?" asked Rep. Justin Jones, D-Nashville, who represents the district where the airport is located. "This bill is trolling but it's also an attempt to erase the voices of the people of Tennessee's 52nd House district. We have fought so hard to move Confederate monuments across the state. Why would we erect another one for a man who has been the grand wizard-in-chief in Washington?"

Warner said 65% of Tennesseans supported Trump in each of the past three elections.

"President Trump has put America first," Warner said. "When he puts America first, it puts Tennessee first."

House Speaker Pro Tem Pat Marsh, R-Shelbyville, said he thought larger airports like ones in Chicago, Los Angeles or Atlanta should be named after Trump.

"BNA is not big enough to have the name President Trump," Marsh said, referring to the airport by its code letters.

Rep. Addison McDowell, R-N.C., filed a bill in the U.S. House of Representatives that would rename Washington's Dulles International Airport after Trump. That bill is in a U.S. House transportation subcommittee.

The Tennessee bill will go to the House Transportation Committee with a negative recommendation after six members of the Naming and Designating Committee voted against it. Four members voted yes.

The Senate version of the bill sponsored by Rep. Joey Hensley, R-Hohenwald, is in the Senate Transportation and Safety Committee.