Florida republican introduces bill to add Trump to Mount Rushmore

WASHINGTON—On Tuesday, January 28, U.S. Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL) introduced legislation that would direct the secretary of Interior to carve President Donald Trump on Mount Rushmore. Luna announced in a press release that the bill aims to honor President Trump for his impact on the country and his leadership. Luna, 35, was reelected last November, after she won her first term in 2022 with Donald Trump supporting her primary campaign and is the first Mexican American elected to serve in Congress from Florida.

“President Trump’s bold leadership and steadfast dedication to America’s greatness have cemented his place in history,” said Congresswoman Luna on Jan. 28 in a press release. “Mount Rushmore, a timeless symbol of our nation’s freedom and strength, deserves to reflect his towering legacy—a legacy further solidified by the powerful start to his second term. He will be forever remembered among the great like Presidents George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, and Theodore Roosevelt.”

Rep. Luna’s bill faces tough challenges to becoming law, but the bill comes in the midst of another MAGA-led effort to change the Constitution to allow President Trump to seek a third, and final, term in office. That effort, a House resolution led by Tennessee Congressman Andy Ogles, needs at least a two-thirds vote in both the House and Senate as well as be ratified by 38 states to change the Constitution. North Carolina Representative Addison McDowell led another effort last week and introduced a bill to rename Washington Dulles International Airport after President Trump.

It’s not the first effort to add a president to Mount Rushmore National Memorial, though. In 1999, Congress debated on adding President Ronald Reagan and ultimately rejected the idea. In 2011, various news reports published that park rangers said adding an additional head to the sculpture would endanger the current structure. In 2020, the Argus Leader reported that Maureen McGee-Ballinger, Mount Rushmore National Memorial’s Chief of Interpretation and Education, said additions to the mountain carving are not possible.

Last July, then-South Dakota Lieutenant Governor Larry Rhoden—who assumed South Dakota’s governorship on Saturday, January 25—said that Mount Rushmore has room for one more [President] while he pledged South Dakota’s delegate votes for Trump. In his speech, Rhoden gave credit to Trump’s decision to host a firework display at Mount Rushmore, after the annual tradition was banned in 2009 due to wildfire and environmental concerns. Since Trump’s visit to Mount Rushmore in 2020, there have been no firework shows at the National Memorial.

Mount Rushmore has been a contentious site since its creation and was challenged after the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, where statues of Confederate leaders and others were vandalized and removed throughout the country. When Trump hosted an Independence Day celebration at Mount Rushmore National Memorial in 2020, it led to an organized protest with 22 people arrested, jailed and charged with crimes related to blocking traffic and disobeying law enforcement. In January 2023, during the 118th Congress, South Dakota Representative-At Large Dusty Johnson introduced a bill that if it passed the Federal government would not provide funds to change, destroy or remove any part, name, face or other feature on the Mount Rushmore National Memorial. Johnson’s bill didn’t reach the House for a floor vote, however.

“It’s is a serious threat to the integrity of the treaty relationship for any president to take unilateral action impacting the most holy epicenter of the Oceti Sakowin,” said Sacred Defense Fund Organizer and Spokesperson Tokata Iron Eyes to Native Sun News Today. Iron Eyes organized a youth demonstration during Trump’s 2020 visit to Mount Rushmore, to bring awareness of Native issues as well as acknowledging that the Black Hills is a sacred place.

“We utilized direct action to occupy and shut down the highway into Mount Rushmore in protest of his arrival and to call attention to the lack of respect and consideration of native nations that call the Black Hills home or acknowledge it as a sacred site,” said Iron Eyes. “Mount Rushmore exists historically and perpetually in a nonconsensual way for native peoples, for the Lakota, who’ve made treaties with the United States government over the territory in which Mount Rushmore sits, that had been repeatedly broken prior and never accounted for.”

None of South Dakota’s Congressional leaders have commented on Luna’s bill, however, and it’s unclear if the bill will have much support. It would need nearly unanimous support from House Republicans and needs support from several Democrat Senators. The bill is currently in House Committee on Natural Resources and has not been scheduled for a hearing.

“It is deeply troubling from both a legal and Lakota perspective that legislation has been introduced to put President Trump on Mount Rushmore,” said University of Nevada Professor of Law Danielle Finn to Native Sun News Today. “The Black Hills are sacred to the Lakota people, and Mount Rushmore itself was carved into the landscape without their consent, in direct violation of the 1868 Treaty of Fort Laramie.”

Before statehood, the Black Hills were home to the Lakota people and was considered Indian land part of the Great Sioux Reservation according to the 1868 Treaty of Fort Laramie between the United States and the Oglala, Mniconjou, and Brulé bands of Lakota people, Yankton Dakota and Arapaho Nation (Wyoming). The treaty established the Great Sioux Reservation, including ownership of the Black Hills, and the U.S. government would punish not only white settlers who committed crimes against the Tribes, but also Tribal individuals who committed crimes on Indian lands. At this point, tribal courts didn’t exist among Lakota communities.

Animosities over the treaty arose quickly and open war again broke out in 1876, and the U.S. government passed an act that reclaimed the Black Hills in 1877. The treaty became the basis of the 1980 Supreme Court case, United States v. Sioux Nation of Indians, where court ruled that tribal lands covered under the treaty had been taken illegally by the U.S. and tribes were owed compensation plus interest. Today, with the accumulated interest, it comes to more than $2 billion.

“For many Indigenous people, this is a reminder of historical injustices, including the violation of sacred lands and broken promises,” Finn said. “To further this disrespect by adding another figure to the monument, especially one who has shown little regard for Indigenous rights and sovereignty, perpetuates a legacy of harm. True reconciliation and healing for Native communities can only begin when there is genuine respect for their lands, culture, and history. The current proposal is another attempt to ignore and silence the voices of those who have been marginalized for centuries.”

Iron Eyes said, “Tribal Nations and our allies must stand firm in seeking land back in the Black Hills, protecting the sacred sites and the ecosystem and water resources from outside corporate mining interests seeking to continue the destruction of our homeland.”

Darren Thompson is the Director of Media Relations for the Sacred Defense Fund and can be reached at darren@sacreddefense.org.

The post Florida republican introduces bill to add Trump to Mount Rushmore first appeared on Native Sun News Today.

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