A bill to repeal a state holiday honoring Cesar Chavez passed out of the Arizona Senate with near-unanimous bipartisan support after Democrats fought bitterly — and failed — to rename the holiday in honor of the farmworkers movement, rather than erasing it entirely.
The vote to repeal the holiday comes 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 exploit them, including allegations that he abused Ana Murguia and Debra Rojas when they were children.
“The conduct described in those reports is heinous, and it demands a clear response,” Senate President Warren Petersen said in a video statement.
The repeal bill passed on a 29-1 bipartisan vote, but the vote featured a stark partisan divide.
Many Democrats supported the legislation reluctantly after Republicans blocked Sen. Sally Ann Gonzales’ attempts to rename the March 31 state holiday Farmworkers Day.
But only Gonzales, a Tucson Democrat, voted no on the bill.
As a former farm laborer herself, she accused Republicans of using the revelations about Chavez to “erase” the history of farmworkers and their struggle for civil rights.
“We all worked hard, and so this bill erases the hard work that my family struggled and went through,” Gonzales said. “I am that kid that worked in the fields.”
She said the holiday was always about more than Cesar Chavez.
“What is important for the public to realize is that Cesar Chavez Day, the celebration, was not for a single man,” Gonzales said. “It was for a collective of community, of thousands of families, mothers, dads, mothers, children, grandmothers, grandchildren, who sacrificed themselves for the good of the community.”
Sen. Rosanna Gabaldón (D-Green Valley) expressed similar sentiments.
“I’m very angry today and I’m sad,” Gabaldón said. “Because what we’re doing is we’re wiping away my father-in-law, my grandfather, all my family, all of my husband’s family and all of the people that are out there. We are just wiping them out.”
Gabaldón ultimately voted for the bill “for the women who have come forward.”
Republicans denied they were trying to erase farmworker history, arguing the vote was about Chavez, not the larger movement he led.
“This vote does not erase the contributions of farmworkers or diminish the broader labor movement,” Petersen said in the video. “But Arizona will not honor a man who committed heinous acts against children.”
Democratic lawmakers called on their Republican counterparts to go a step further and adopt language stating the legislature’s "commitment to protecting victims and upholding accountability by ensuring that a state holiday is not observed for or acknowledgment given to a predator or person who is alleged to have committed a dangerous crime against children.”
Democrats made repeated references to the ongoing controversy surrounding the Epstein Files, including allegations against President Trump that were initially withheld by the administration. The Justice Department released some of those files after NPR reported dozens of pages that included the claims were not released by the Department of Justice.
“If they wanted to honor the victims that have come forward, they would have heard my amendment to the bill,” Gonzales said.
But Republicans declined to adopt that language, which was included in Gonzales’ larger amendment to rename the holiday.
“We don’t have an Epstein file bill in front of us,” Senate President Pro Tempore T.J Shope said after shutting down repeated references to Trump and the files.
The bill must still pass the Arizona House and be signed by Gov. Katie Hobbs to officially repeal the holiday.
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