Vegas airport name change to honor former Sen. Harry Reid

A county board voted unanimously Tuesday to rename busy McCarran International Airport in Las Vegas after former US Sen. Harry Reid of Nevada. The all-Democratic Clark County Commission approved a measure directing the county’s airport staff to file a change with the FAA renaming the facility Harry Reid International Airport. The county commission oversees the airport and is the final authority on a name change. There have been longstanding calls to rename the airport. Its current namesake, former Nevada Sen. Patrick McCarran, served as one of Nevada’s two US senators from 1933 until his death in 1954. He was known for his contributions to aviation along with his anti-immigrant and anti-Semitic views. Reid, a Democrat and the former Senate majority leader, retired from the Senate in 2016 after serving 30 years. The FAA says it must take steps to process a name change before officially recognizing it. That’s expected to take a few months.<br/>