EDITORIAL: Separate Frenchman Mountain bills could satisfy Muth, Titus

It’s a rare feat when people on both sides of a politicized issue get their way, but it just might happen with an instance that’s made a mountain out of a molehill — about a mountain. Conservative activist Chuck Muth may get his Mount Reagan, and Rep. Dina Titus, D-Nev., could have her Mount Maude Frazier.

As the Review-Journal’s Henry Brean reported last week, Mr. Muth had worked for several months to get the peak of Frenchman Mountain named after former President Ronald Reagan. His efforts won the approval of the Nevada Board on Geographic Names in September and was then due for review by the U.S. Board on Geographic Names, which usually has the final say on such matters.

Enter Rep. Titus, who quietly introduced a House bill on Oct. 30 to name the peak Maude Frazier Mountain, after the fellow Democrat, who was the first woman to serve as lieutenant governor of Nevada and was the driving force behind the creation of what is now UNLV. Mr. Brean noted that any action by Congress trumps that of the national naming board — even if that action seemed politically motivated, as Mr. Muth argued in December, when he first heard of the congresswoman’s maneuver. “This was a cheap, petty, partisan political stunt,” he said at the time.

Rep. Titus’ spokeswoman Caitlin Teare begged to differ. “It is simply an effort to name a Nevada landmark after a notable Nevadan,” Ms. Teare said in December.

Mr. Muth said he made an overture to resolve the issue when he ran into Rep. Titus at a recent UNLV basketball game, with the congresswoman telling him to find another mountain — an allegation that Ms. Teare again said was mischaracterized.

Regardless, Rep. Titus will apparently win the battle for highest point of Frenchman Mountain, and Mr. Muth will settle on a point just to the north that sits about 100 feet lower. Rep. Joe Heck, R-Nev., sponsored a bill last week — on what would have been President Reagan’s 103rd birthday — for the new location of Mount Reagan. Mr. Brean reported that the two bills don’t appear to conflict with each other, although the name of the mountain in its entirety will remain Frenchman Mountain.

Should both laws pass, it won’t exactly represent a landmark compromise, with petty politics on such a minor issue. Still, Rep. Titus can lay claim to honoring a woman who had a major impact on this region and the state of Nevada. And Mr. Muth would still get much of what he sought, winning one for the Gipper, who is also a deserving honoree.