Congress’ leading defender of President William McKinley is retiring, but he has recruited another lawmaker to carry on his effort to keep America’s tallest mountain named after the 25th president.

Ohio Republican Ralph Regula has introduced legislation repeatedly during his 35-year congressional career to prevent Alaskans from changing the name of Mt. McKinley to Denali, its Native Alaskan name.

The mountain got its name in 1907, when a prospector who had admired McKinley decided to name it after him. It stuck.

The national park where the 20,320-foot mountain is located does bear the name Denali, but Regula has refused to budge on renaming McKinley, a move that Alaskans say would help avoid confusion.

With Regula retiring at the end of this Congress, some had thought that the renaming might proceed next year. But a fellow Ohioan — Democratic Rep. Tim Ryan — plans to continue Regula’s defensive actions.

Since 1977, Regula has either introduced a bill early in every session or has managed to get a policy rider attached to an appropriations law to keep the mountain’s federal designation as McKinley.

The U.S. Board on Geographic Names, a federal entity with control over the names of federal landmarks, will not even debate, much less change, a name if federal legislation is introduced to keep the status quo.

Alaskans could submit a petition to the board to change the designation, but Ryan, who represents McKinley’s hometown of Niles, Ohio, has vowed to maintain Regula’s tradition.

“It will be my first bill to do every year . . . From what I’ve been told [McKinley] represented average people and was a visionary.  . . .  Ralph asked me to do it, and I am happy to oblige,” says Ryan, who lives just up the street from McKinley’s birthplace, which is also home to the McKinley Memorial Library.

Regula has an even more personal connection with McKinley, who was assassinated in 1901 early in his second term. The former president lived in Canton, the largest city in Regula’s district, and represented the area in the House for more than a dozen years. Regula even graduated from a now-defunct law school named after McKinley.

The state of Alaska voted in 1975 to change the mountain’s name. According to Steve Hansen, a spokesman for Rep. Don Young, R-Alaska, the Board on Geographic Names was prepared to act favorably when Regula stepped in.

In 1980, however, a federal law did change the name of Mt. McKinley National Park to Denali National Park and Preserve. Hansen says it only makes sense now to give the mountain the same name as the park.

“Consistency dictates we use the name Denali for the mountain at the heart of the park,” he says.

Hansen says his boss has no problem with naming a natural landmark after a president. But the fact that McKinley’s roots were in Ohio and he never visited Alaska does bother Young.

Hansen says Young, the ranking Republican on the Natural Resources Committee, is even willing to help redesignate a federal forest or other landmark in Ohio after McKinley if Regula — and now Ryan — will just go along with the name change of Alaska’s mountain.