Federal building posthumously renamed in honor of former U.S. Sen. Paul Wellstone
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A federal building in downtown Minneapolis was officially renamed on Tuesday afternoon in honor of former U.S. Sen. Paul Wellstone, who died in 2002 in a plane crash with his wife, daughter and staffers.
The bill naming the building at 221 Third Ave. S. in downtown Minneapolis for the progressive senator and activist was spearheaded by U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar.
The federal building in downtown Minneapolis currently hosts passport offices, the National Labor Relations Board and the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Klobuchar said the building will continue Wellstone’s legacy of “standing up for working people.”
“Paul’s philosophy fit this building, it was that our job was to improve people’s lives,” Klobuchar said. “That’s what this building is about.”
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Klobuchar said U.S. Rep. Tom Emmer, who wasn’t present at the ceremony, was instrumental to passing the legislation to rename the building in Wellstone’s honor.
Wellstone and seven others — including his wife Sheila, daughter Marcia, campaign staffers Tom Lapic, Will McLaughlin and Mary McEvoy, as well as two pilots — were killed in a plane crash on the morning of Oct. 25, 2002. Wellstone’s son, David, who wasn’t on the plane that day, said the entire family is honored by the naming of the building.
“We get to think about everybody who was on the plane that day, and who we lost,” David Wellstone said. “While we’re calling this the Paul Wellstone building, which is a massive honor, it’s also a building that honors everybody who was there who did the work, and certainly a building that honors my mom, because my dad wasn’t who he was without my mom.”
U.S. Sen. Tina Smith said Wellstone reminded public servants that politics isn’t about power, money or winning, but about the improvement of people’s lives.
“And I know that he inspired every single one of us that is here today, to dream, to take up the fight, to make our politics work for regular people and not just the rich and powerful,” Smith said.
The building was constructed as a post office and home for federal courts in 1915, according to the U.S. General Services Administration. After construction of a new post office building downtown, it was occupied by employees of the Internal Revenue Service and armed force recruitment operations, which made it a target for protests during the Vietnam War.