Arizona lawmakers from both parties are backing an effort to repeal a state holiday honoring Cesar Chavez after multiple women accused the labor rights leader of sexual abuse.
Arizona is one of nearly a dozen states that officially honors Chavez with a holiday, which has been observed for more than two decades on March 31 — the day he was born in Yuma.
Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs already said she would not observe the holiday this year. And now a bill advancing through the state Legislature would get rid of the honor for good.
The Senate Regulatory Affairs & Government Efficiency committee unanimously approved the measure, House Bill 2072, on Tuesday, a week after the New York Times reported multiple women accused Chavez of using his position as a leader of the farmworkers rights movement to sexually abuse and rape them.
That report included allegations from Dolores Huerta, another farm workers rights icon, along with Ana Murguia and Debra Rojas, who accused Chavez of abusing them for years, starting when they were children.
“Protecting children and holding predators accountable is a fundamental responsibility of government. Arizona law should never be used to honor someone tied to that kind of harm,” Sen. President Warren Petersen (R-Gilbert) said in a statement. “This should receive unanimous, bipartisan support. Anything less would be a failure to stand with victims and uphold the basic duty to protect the vulnerable. There is no greater crime than one committed against a child.”
The bill has received that bipartisan support at the Legislature, so far.
“Accountability for all predators should be swift, and justice for all victims should be restorative,” said Sen. Analise Ortiz (D-Phoenix). “This bill is an important step toward accountability and justice.”
Ortiz also called for accountability for other powerful men connected to sexual abuse allegations, “including every single man named in the Jeffrey Epstein files.” She said that includes President Donald Trump.
While support for removing Chavez’s name from the holiday is bipartisan, there is a partisan divide over what comes next.
Democrats are calling on the Republicans who control the state Legislature to amend the legislation to rename the holiday instead of removing it altogether.
Ortiz said it could be renamed Farm Workers Day.
“Because there are so many untold and undertold contributions of brave workers who advanced labor and civil rights, and they deserve to be honored,” Ortiz said. “It is Latino history. It is United States history.”
Sen. Mitzi Epstein (D-Tempe) agreed.
“I listened to a video of Dolores Huerta. I thought it was beautiful that she said, ‘it's not about one person. It's about the movement; about how people work together to bring a very important change for everybody,'" Epstein said.
In a statement, Petersen, the Senate president, said, “The farmworkers Chavez sought to uplift still deserve our support and advocacy today.”
However, he indicated that he won’t support renaming the holiday.
“We have Labor Day,” he told KJZZ when asked if he planned to support creating a new holiday honoring farmworkers.
HB 2072 still needs to pass a final vote on the Senate floor. If that happens, it will be sent to the Arizona House of Representatives for approval before moving to the governor’s desk.
The bill includes an emergency clause, meaning it needs a supermajority vote in both chambers to pass and would repeal the holiday immediately once Hobbs signs it into law.
The legislation is part of a larger push by state and local governments across Arizona and the western U.S. to erase Chavez’ name from public spaces, including statues, government buildings and schools.
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