Florida's legislature sent a bill to Governor Ron DeSantis's desk that would rename Palm Beach International Airport after President Donald Trump, clearing both chambers with comfortable margins.

The Hill reported that the Florida Senate approved the measure on Thursday in a 25-11 vote. Days earlier, the state House of Representatives passed it 81-30. The bill now awaits DeSantis's signature, though the governor has not indicated whether he will sign it.

Trump, a native of New York, moved to Florida in 2019, trading his penthouse at Trump Tower for a primary residence at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach. The airport renaming follows Florida's approval last year of a plan to donate a downtown Miami property for the site of Trump's presidential library.

The pattern is straightforward. Florida has embraced Trump as one of its own, and its Republican-controlled legislature is acting accordingly.

States name airports, highways, and buildings after presidents. It is one of the most routine forms of civic recognition in American life. Reagan has his airport in Washington. JFK has his in New York. The only thing remarkable about this legislation is how unremarkable it should be.

The Predictable Objections

Predictably, not everyone sees it that way. Rep. Lois Frankel, a Democrat who represents West Palm Beach, offered the standard critique:

"It's misguided and unfair that the Republican-controlled Florida Legislature ignored the voices of Palm Beach County by pushing forward a bill to rename Palm Beach International Airport without giving County residents a real opportunity for input."

The framing is worth examining. Frankel objects that the legislature acted without sufficient local input. But state legislatures rename state-operated facilities through legislation all the time. That is how representative government works.

Voters in Palm Beach County elected state representatives who cast votes on this bill. That is the input mechanism. It's called a legislature.

The real objection, of course, has nothing to do with process. It has everything to do with the name on the building. If Florida were renaming the airport after a figure Democrats admired, the "local input" concern would evaporate overnight.

The governor's office did not immediately respond to a request for comment, and the White House declined to comment as well. Spokespeople for Palm Beach County and the Trump Organization also did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

DeSantis has not tipped his hand. But the political math is simple. The bill passed with overwhelming majorities in both chambers. Vetoing it would serve no obvious purpose and would alienate the Republican base in a state where Trump remains enormously popular. Signing it costs him nothing.

Civic Recognition in a Polarized Age

There was a time when naming a public facility after a sitting or recent president was bipartisan boilerplate. Washington National Airport became Reagan National in 1998, less than a decade after he left office, and while the vote drew grumbling, it passed Congress and moved on. These gestures are meant to honor the office as much as the man.

That basic civic instinct has been swallowed by the same polarization that turns every routine government action into a culture war flashpoint.

A state legislature votes to put a president's name on an airport in the county where he lives, and it becomes a story about "ignoring voices." The voices were heard. They voted. They lost 25-11 and 81-30.

Florida keeps building the infrastructure of recognition around a president who chose the state as home. First the presidential library site in Miami. Now the airport in Palm Beach. The legislature is not being subtle about it, and it does not need to be.

The bill sits on the governor's desk. The margins speak for themselves.