COLUMBUS, OH- The Ohio Senate voted unanimously on S.B. 189 ( [link] ) this past Thursday to change the name of Lake Erie to Lake Ohio. Senator Donald Goldman (R) and Senator Robert Mueller (D) co-sponsored the bill in a most unusual spirit of bipartisanship in The Ohio General Assembly. Senator Goldman stated on Friday morning, “I think most Ohioans are behind this name change and quite frankly, we own most of the lake anyways. This has been a long time coming”

Lake Erie is the eleventh largest lake in the world (by surface area), and the fourth largest of the Great Lakes in surface area though the smallest by volume. Ohio has access to the largest portion of the lake or 11,700 sq mi (30,400 sq km) as compared to Michigan with a paltry 5800 sq mi (15,100 sq km.)

The greater part of its southern shore was at one time occupied by a nation known to the Iroquois League as the "Erielhonan," or the "long-tails," a tribe of Indians from which the lake derived its name. An unnamed Senator said off the record, “Most Indians do not like to have things named after them anyways. They have been after the Cleveland Indians for years. I think the Iroquois descendants will be happy with this as long as they aren’t all dead.”

When questions about the mnemonic, H.O.M.E.S., that most people remember the lakes by, Senator Mueller paused and said, “Is that going to be HOMOS now? I didn’t think of that. It almost makes it easier to remember.”