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News / Opinion / Columns

Camden: Panel pushes holiday renaming

By Jim Camden

Published: February 19, 2025, 6:01am

The calendar says Monday was Presidents Day, 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.

“Holidays are important,” Abell, R-Inchelium, said. “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.

Should it pass, the bill could remove, from the state’s calendar at least, 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 Abell’s proposal, although to be accurate, only Abell testified in favor of it. The committee hasn’t scheduled a vote, 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.”

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, recognizing the pickled cabbage that is a staple of Korean diets.

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 such as 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 mall kiosk marked down 50 percent in the second week of January.

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