The Florida Senate voted Thursday to rename the Palm Beach International Airport after President Donald Trump. The House passed its version of the measure earlier this week, sending the bill directly to Gov. Ron DeSantis desk for consideration.
The Senate vote took place as a poll conducted by the Palm Beach Post as of 1 p.m. on Thursday showed more than 90% of their readers do not want the airport to be renamed for the president.
Sen. Debbie Mayfield, R-Melbourne, sponsor of the bill, SB 706, has already made a budget request of $5.5 million to pay for the name change.
South Florida Democratic Sen. Tina Polsky said it was “shocking to me” that the state would spend that amount on the name change.
“The sexual assault convictions. The impeachments. The divisiveness. You can all agree, even if you believe in the things that he’s done, even if you support him, that he’s hurt a lot of people, and there’s never been a president that has had this kind of divisiveness as kind of a background.”
Mayfield countered Polsky.
“Members, we are 395 days into President Trump’s second term and he has already delivered incredible results for our nation,” Mayfield said, including “closed the southern border and deported more than 400,000 illegal aliens charged with, convicted of crimes including countless killers, rapists, gang members, and repeated offenders,” the Laken Riley Act, and “historic tax relief for small businesses and working class America.”
Adding to Democrats’ ire was the recent report that the Trump family company had filed three applications with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office that would reserve his name for use as the brand of an airport.
Mayfield said the trademark is to avoid “bad actors from infringing upon and misusing the name.”
Mayfield said she has not talked to the president about the airport renaming.
Democrats raised exceptional concern about the president’s possibility of making money on the trademark filed on his name.
Sen. Carlos Guillermo Smith, a Democrat from Orlando, called it “unprecedented grift” for Trump to profit off of the name.
Democrats pleaded to at least wait until completion of Trump’s second term to name the airport after him.
“These decisions are made with the benefit of time, history, and perspective. Not in the middle of a term,” Berman said.
In her 16 years in office representing Palm Beach, Berman said, “not once has someone called me or my office to demand that we change the name of our local airport, much less to the name of a sitting president who we as a county even never voted for. This bill is wrong and unnecessary.”
Despite Mayfield sponsoring the bill, the airport is in Democratic Sen. Mack Bernard’s district.
Democrats pointed to controversial statements by Trump, including alleging Haitian immigrants ate cats and dogs and a recent video shared on his social media depicting former President Barack and First Lady Michele Obama as apes.
Sen. Danny Burgess, a Republican from Zephyrhills, pointed to Riviera Beach renaming a stretch of Old Dixie highway after President Barack Obama highway during his time in office.
“At the end of the day, I understand that President Trump can be polarizing, but I want to focus on some action,” Burgess said, going on to credit Trump for hostages being freed in Gaza, crossing the DMZ in Korea during his first term, and what he’s done to “save America.”
Sen. Jason Pizzo, NPA-Sunny Isles Beach, called the renaming “tacky.”
Senators voted 25-11. All votes in opposition were Democrats. Sens. Ileana Garcia, R-Miami, and Pizzo did not vote. Those senators were in the Capitol throughout the day and voted on other bills.
Sen. Joe Gruters did not vote, either; he was not seen in the Capitol and did not present bills he had sponsored that were up for a vote Thursday. He was an early Trump supporter in 2015 and has been elected head of the Republican National Comittee.
The measure had passed easily in the GOP-controlled House, 81-30.
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