Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA) suggested a ban on naming buildings after living politicians, a position that could put him on a crash course against the White House. In an appearance on CBS News’s Face the Nation, Kennedy was asked about an ad paid for by the U.S.
Page B2From§Eachthe matinee edition — 27 September 2026
Senator proposes banning politicians from naming buildings after themselves while the president spends the year trying to
As it ran on the front
The unwritten rule that no public building should carry a sitting politician's name is dead. Nobody can say exactly when it was born; it worked the way the good ones do, by never being tested. It is survived by no statute and no line of code that says so out loud, and it was preceded in death, by some years, by the assumption that a president would not need it explained to him.
The rule spent its last year on trial. For most of the year the President pressed the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts to add his name to the building. On September 15, U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper ruled the effort unlawful, even dressed up as a way to "recognize and honor" the sitting president, and the President answered that the Center was "destined to doom." That same Tuesday the board he had handpicked voted to close the main building for $250 million in renovations, and the President said the work would not go forward until his name went back on the wall. A building, it turns out, can be closed and reopened on a signature, but not renamed on a judge's ruling.…
…(cont) That is the word the family reached for. On September 16, one of President Kennedy's nieces called the standoff hostage-taking. Two days later the wider Kennedy family said, "How small minded, how narcissistic" — words a family does not usually spend on a sitting president unless the alternative is watching the building they named for a murdered one get held for ransom over a nameplate.
Then, on September 27, Senator John Kennedy of Louisiana — a different Kennedy, no relation — went on Face the Nation and proposed, mildly, that no public official should get a building named after them while still alive to enjoy it. The rule he wants written into law had just spent a year dying in public, inside a building named for the last man it happened to.
Call it penny-ante, a senator's Sunday-show suggestion against a year of federal litigation. But a country does not usually need a statute to tell a president not to buy his own name a wall. It needed one this year, and the ask, so far, is only a senator's proposal and a judge's order — neither one law yet, both of them proof the rule is already gone.
In lieu of flowers, Congress should pass the bill.
“You get a senator going on Sunday TV to say "maybe don't put your name on the building while you're alive" — and that's the headline, except the guy he's not naming spent the whole year fighting a federal judge to do exactly that. Meanwhile the actual building sits closed, two hundred fifty million dollars of renovation on hold, until the name goes up. That's not a renovation schedule, that's a ransom note with union labor.”
“Look, presidents get honored while they're in office all the time — airports, highways, that's just how it works. Okay, maybe not the building you're currently trying to occupy, that one's a little different, fair point. But you've got one judge, one ruling — the board voted, this is a governance question, not a — did I say governance question? That's not where I meant to go with that.”
The receipts
GOP Sen. John Kennedy (La.) said Sunday that public officials should not have buildings named after them while they are alive, as President Trump fights to rename the Kennedy Center after himself. During an interview on CBS News’s “Face the Nation,”
The family of former President Kennedy slammed President Trump for his ongoing legal battle to put his name on the Kennedy Center and to close the building for planned renovations. The Kennedy Center board, handpicked by Trump, voted Tuesday to close the main building, but Trump said the renovations will not happen as long as...
· Trump Says Kennedy Center Is 'Destined to Doom' After Judge Stops Him From Slapping His Name on It from the morgue, 15 Sep 2026
· Kennedy scion accused Trump of ‘bankrupting’ Kennedy Center as ‘hostage taking’ name change battle persists from the morgue, 16 Sep 2026
· Kennedy Center to Close for Renovations Amid Naming Battle from the morgue, 16 Sep 2026
· Trump threatens to stop Kennedy Center renovation if his name isn't added back to building from the morgue, 16 Sep 2026
This page is a back-issue: the story as it ran, receipts as they were. The current edition is at the front. The byline is a pen name for a column drafted by a machine and checked by the editor: how this is made.