Spin Control: House panel considers renaming Presidents Day holiday

The calendar says Monday is Presidents Day, which is a national holiday. But if an Eastern Washington lawmaker has his way, next year that could change, at least in this state, to Washington’s Birthday (Observed).

The legislation to make that change was described at a recent hearing of the House State Government Committee by sponsor Rep. Hunter Abell as a way to “return the holiday to its roots” of honoring the nation’s first president. It would also teach a bit of history and clear up confusion about the current day off that was created by Congress in 1968 as a way to guarantee a three-day weekend in February, he said.

“Holidays are important,” Abell, R-Inchelium, told the committee. “They need to be easily understandable.”

Congress never officially changed the name, he said, so several other states still call it Washington’s Birthday. Some people are confused as to whether it’s a day to celebrate the first president, or Washington and Abraham Lincoln – whose Feb. 12 birthday also used to be a federal holiday – or all presidents, he said.

In drafting his bill, which gives some highlights of Washington’s career, and making his case before the committee, Abell skipped over what some might consider a salient fact regarding the first president’s birthday. Or at least a possible Final Jeopardy answer in the category of “Early American History Trivia.”

When Washington was born at Mount Vernon, Virginia, in 1731, the calendar on the wall – if there was one in the semi-wilds of the colonies – would have said Feb. 11. That’s because as a British colony, Virginia was still using the old Julian calendar system.

When George was 20, Great Britain switched over to the more accurate Gregorian calendar, daily life skipped ahead 11 days, and many documents and dates were adjusted.

So history is not as cut and dried as one might think.

Bits of historical misinformation connected to the panel’s presidential holiday discussion were bipartisan.

During the hearing, Rep. Beth Doglio, D-Olympia, decried the fact that Lincoln’s birthday is no longer a federal holiday. Growing up in Illinois, Doglio said, she always enjoyed having that day off because it’s also her birthday. Illinois still has Feb. 12 as a holiday, she added, because “Abraham Lincoln was born in Illinois.”

Actually, no. Lincoln spent most of his adult life in Illinois, was a state legislator there, a member of Congress from there, debated Steven Douglas seven times there, left for the White House from there.

But he was born in Kentucky, which might make another good Final Jeopardy answer.

Another problem with declaring Monday to be Washington’s Birthday (Observed) is that calendars will still have a notation for later in the week, under Feb. 22, that says “Washington’s Birthday.” Although they will never fall on the same day, in 2028 the observed and the traditional will be just a day apart.

Should it pass, the bill could remove, from the state’s calendar at least, one bit of confusion surrounding the current holiday regarding the use or nonuse of an apostrophe: Is it Presidents Day, President’s Day or Presidents’ Day?

I am bound by the AP Stylebook – plural, no apostrophe – but reasonable people can disagree. Abell’s bill has it as plural possessive; the calendar on my wall lists it as singular possessive. We’d have to wait for the dust to settle between the White House and AP over the Gulf of Mexico/America to see if AP would follow the state’s lead.

Considering this is the only state in the union named for a president and, as Abell noted, the nation’s semiquincentennial is coming up next year – 250 years since 1776, for those not familiar with fancy calendar phrases – discussion of this idea is probably not a complete waste of time. At the very least, a few more people might learn Presidents Day was not created to give stores a reason to put beds and home appliances on sale.

But it is worth asking how much time this year’s Legislature should spend on marking and remarking the calendar when there are serious fiscal and policy issues to solve.

No one testified against Abel’s proposal, although to be absolutely accurate, only Abell testified in favor of it. The committee hasn’t scheduled a vote on it, but if the pattern holds, they’ll at least pass it up to the full House.

The previous week, the same committee held a hearing on a bill to declare Dec. 12 a state holiday to recognize Seattle Seahawks fans. The so-called Day of the 12s, referencing fans’ longtime nickname as the “12th player” on the field – it’s on 12/12, get it? – had Committee Chairwoman Sharlett Mena, the bill’s sponsor, extolling the virtues of the team as helping to “build the bonds that bind Washington together.”

Mena, D-Tacoma, noted the fans’ history of setting seismic records for the volume of their cheers. Not surprisingly, she skipped any mention of that stretch in the middle of last season when Lumen Field’s usual cacophony was sometimes reduced to a mystified mutter.

That 12s bill received unanimous support in the committee and was sent to the full House.

The same committee voted in favor of adding Eid al-Fitr, the end of Ramadan, and Eid al-Adha, the end of the Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca, to the list of state recognized holidays. It also voted to name Nov. 22 as Kimchi Day on that list, to recognize the pickled cabbage that is a staple of Korean diets. There was no thought to whether Washingtonians of German descent might demand a bill for Sauerkraut Day in some future session.

Being declared a state holiday is not the same as being declared a state legal holiday, which Presidents Day already is. On state legal holidays, which usually coincide with federal legal holidays, many people get a day off work with pay or get paid extra for being on the job.

A state holiday might recognize a group, like veterans, Korean Americans or children; individuals as diverse as Columbus – who used to have his own legal holiday – and Indian rights activist Billy Frank Jr.; or worthy causes like blood donations, human trafficking awareness or water safety. Other than that, there’s not much to mark a state holiday, which currently number 19, but would grow to 23 if the committee has its way.

They show up in state statute but almost never on the calendars bought at the shopping mall kiosk marked down 50% in the second week of January.