When Representative Andy Ogles, Republican of Tennessee, filed legislation to try to make President Trump eligible for a third term, he didn’t need Mr. Trump to ask him to do it. Mr. Ogles heard the president muse about extending his tenure in office, and he snapped into action.
“It tweaked my interest,” Mr. Ogles said. “And so then you have to have that thoughtful process of, ‘OK, if someone were to serve a third term, how might you facilitate it?’”
Mr. Ogles’s proposed amendment to the Constitution is highly unlikely to become law. It would require a two-thirds vote of Congress and three-fourths vote of the states. But it is among a flurry of bills that Republicans have submitted to begin the 119th Congress that are designed to flatter, honor or further empower Mr. Trump.
In one of his first acts in office, Representative Addison McDowell, a freshman from North Carolina, submitted a bill that would change the name of Washington Dulles International Airport to Donald J. Trump International Airport. He said he wanted to put Mr. Trump on even standing with another Republican icon, former President Ronald Reagan, who has a D.C. airport named after him.
Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, Republican of Georgia, filed legislation to expunge the two impeachments of Mr. Trump, an attempt to clear the record of any mention of his alleged offenses and make it as if the impeachments “had never passed the full House of Representatives.”
And just last week, Representative Anna Paulina Luna, Republican of Florida, submitted a bill to add Mr. Trump’s likeness to Mount Rushmore, placing him alongside George Washington, Abraham Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt.
Days into his administration, Mr. Trump has set about enacting his agenda at breakneck speed, seeking to upend and remake the federal government in ways that have left many Democrats and some Republicans concerned.
Among congressional Republicans, there have been few signs of pushback against Mr. Trump’s agenda. Some G.O.P. senators, including Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Susan Collins of Maine, have shown a willingness to buck Mr. Trump.
But in the House, Republicans have largely taken on the role of cheerleaders, rather than acting as a constitutional check on the president’s power. A competition of sorts has broken out for whom the Republican base will see as the most pro-Trump member.
The rush of flattering legislation, some of which even the lawmakers concede is unlikely to pass, stands apart from merely carrying out Mr. Trump’s agenda. They must still find consensus to do the difficult tasks of cutting taxes, funding the government and passing a massive reconciliation bill.
“It shows the power that Donald Trump has within the Republican Party these days, and that Republican members want to stay on his good side,” said Sean M. Theriault, government professor at the University of Texas at Austin. “A lot of these people are in really safe districts, but they’re also thinking about what their next step is. And so if they have designs on being in the Senate or running for governor or even a position in the administration, then there’s no better way to get on his good side than to do these over-the-top moves toward him.”
Oftentimes the flattering bills were not directly requested by Mr. Trump. Sometimes the dynamic between Mr. Trump and his allies on the Hill resembles a call-and-response, in which Mr. Trump floats an idea publicly and then lawmakers rush to make it a reality.
Ms. Greene, for instance, has traveled with Mr. Trump so extensively that she feels she knows what he wants before he asks for it. When Mr. Trump proposed renaming the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America, Ms. Greene was quick to file legislation on the topic.
“I’ve spent the past five years traveling the country with President Trump, campaigning for him, going to probably more rallies than any member of Congress, and I know how he thinks. I know what’s on his heart, and I know his agenda for America,” she said, adding: “So being quick on those things, it’s not difficult.”
Ms. Luna is not the first to suggest that Mr. Trump be added to Mount Rushmore. Mr. Trump once told the governor of South Dakota, Kristi Noem, that it was his “dream” to be added to the monument in her state. She presented him with a replica of Mount Rushmore with his face on it, and she was recently confirmed as his director of homeland security.
Ms. Luna said she hadn’t directly discussed her bill with Mr. Trump. But she took note when a Trump aide, Dan Scavino Jr., posted on Truth Social a digitally manipulated picture that added a photo of Mr. Trump alongside the presidents carved in granite in South Dakota.
“It’s a pretty good indicator that he’s probably supportive, based on what Dan Scavino posted,” she said, adding: “I do think if all goes well, we will see President Trump on Mount Rushmore. So I’m happy for it to be my bill.”
Some ideas that Mr. Trump floats that seem like jokes at first turn out to be serious, Mr. Theriault noted. Many thought Mr. Trump was not serious when he talked about seizing the Panama Canal, but this week Senator Ted Cruz, Republican of Texas, began exploring what appeared to be the legal arguments to undergird such a takeover.
The idea of Mr. Trump running for a third term, which sounds outlandish to many, could become a rallying cry among Republicans, Mr. Theriault said.
“He opens up a conversation that we can’t even believe that we are now having to have,” he said. “This wasn’t going to be something that we would have to think about, and now it’s going to become part of the political discourse. There’s going to be a rush for all of those Republicans to sign on and co-sponsor the constitutional amendment and it’s going to become part of our dialogue.”
Ardently supporting Mr. Trump has yielded rewards for the members of Congress who choose to do so. Ms. Greene has gone from a virtual pariah deemed unfit to hold a committee seat to the chair of a new subcommittee aimed at cutting government spending. Last week, federal prosecutors in Nashville withdrew from an investigation into Mr. Ogles, in a move seen as beneficial to him.
Mr. Ogles said he had thought long and hard about his to word his bill. He said he had been careful to make it impossible for other former presidents, such as Barack Obama, to seek a third term.
“I tried to be thoughtful about how it was constructed, so that it would only apply in very special circumstances,” Mr. Ogles said.
He said he was waiting until Mr. Trump’s blitz of executive actions cooled off a bit before calling him to talk about the bill.
“I have his number, but I use that judiciously,” Mr. Ogles said. “At the right time, I’ll talk to him about it.”
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