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We have no doubt that a state House member's bill to rename Lake Erie stands as good a chance of becoming law as Lake Erie does of going dry tomorrow.
Rep. David Maloney, R-Boyertown, recently released a co-sponsorship memorandum for a House Resolution that would ask President Donald Trump, Congress, and the United States Secretary of the Interior to take the necessary steps to rename Lake Erie as “Lake Pennsylvania.” Maloney’s resolution is unlikely to be passed in the House or signed by Gov. Josh Shapiro even if it was approved in the GOP-led state Senate. We'd be surprised if Maloney's request makes it out of committee.
Thank goodness for that.
What's hard to gauge is just how serious Maloney is with his proposal. It's one thing if Maloney is having a little bit of legislative fun while thumbing his nose at the controversy over President Trump's renaming of Lake Ontario to Lake America. It's entirely another if he's really serious about renaming Lake Erie as some sort of marketing ploy. His co-sponsorship memorandum argues that Lake Erie is an economic driver for tourist activity in the state, drawing visitors from Ohio, New York and other states. That is true. But that would be true whether Lake Erie keeps its name, is renamed Lake Pennsylvania or, frankly, is named something ridiculous like Big Body of Blue Water In Ohio, Michigan, New York, Pennsylvania and Canada. The lake is its own calling card, not its name.
It's lunacy that our federal government treats maps as something written in pencil. We don't need to give state governments the ability to start rewriting the names of landmarks on a whim. That's especially true when we're talking about a great lake that Pennsylvania shares with other states and another country. Pennsylvania renaming Lake Erie is a little bit like your child's best friend renaming someone else's child.
Lake Erie gets its name from the Erie Native American tribe, whose name comes from the Iroquoian word erielhonan, meaning "long tail." Were it to be renamed, the meaning behind the lake's new name could be summed up in one word – "stupid."