The day before Arizona is scheduled to observe Cesar Chavez Day, a bipartisan group of lawmakers sent a bill to repeal the holiday to Gov. Katie Hobbs, who plans to sign it.
But the Democrats who voted for the measure said they were disappointed that the Republicans who control the state Legislature refused to consider renaming the holiday Farmworkers Day in honor of the civil rights and labor movement Chavez led alongside Dolores Huerta, one of the women who recently accused Chaves of sexual abuse.
“It's a movement. It's not represented by one person,” Rep. Lydia Hernandez (D-Phoenix) said.
Local governments, including Phoenix and Tucson, took steps to rename their holidays rather than repeal them entirely.
The vote came a little over a week after the New York Times reported multiple women accused Chavez of using his power and influence to sexually abuse them. That included allegations by Ana Murguia and Debra Rojas, who said the labor leader groomed and abused them while they were children.
Republicans said those accusations demanded quick action to repeal the holiday, which is celebrated on March 31.
“Arizona law should not honor a man tied to sexual abuse against children and violence against women,” House Speaker Steve Montenegro (R-Goodyear) said in a statement. “The House acted today because victims deserve better, the truth cannot be ignored, and state honors carry meaning.”
The bill repealing the holiday passed the House on a 48-8 bipartisan vote, with eight Democrats voting against the bill, days after a near-unanimous vote in the Arizona Senate.
A spokesman for Hobbs said she will sign the bill.
The bill’s opponents agreed that Chavez's name should be removed from the state holiday and other official recognitions.
But they argued failing to replace the holiday is a slap in the face to farm workers and their struggle for civil rights.
Rep. Alma Hernandez (D-Tucson) voted no in solidarity with her seatmate Sen. Sally Ann Gonzales, who was the only senator to vote against the bill. Gonzales, a former farmworker herself, wore her mother’s old cotton-picking gloves on the floor of the Senate last week when she tried and failed to convince Republicans to rename the holiday.
“Obviously, I want nothing more than to remove everything with this individual's name, but just completely repealing this and not honoring those farmworkers like my Sen. Sally Ann Gonzales and her family is not something that I could stand for,” Hernandez said.
Rep. Lorena Austin (D-Mesa) criticized Republicans for failing to bring the issue to the Legislature’s Latino and Asian American Pacific Islander caucuses before deciding to push a bill removing the holiday altogether.
“My grandparents were farmworkers. My parents fought for the Chicano movement and for farmworkers across the country,” Austin said. “And that's my disappointment with this is that people did not even come to the communities that this has impacted, and I think that's wrong.”
Republicans did not directly address those criticisms during the vote, only defending the need to remove the name of any individual accused of sexual abuse from a state-recognized holidays.
“But when serious allegations of abuse come to light, particularly involving women and children, we have a responsibility to take a step back and ask whether that recognition is still appropriate,” Rep. Lisa Fink (R-Glendale) said.
Senate President Warren Petersen (R-Gilbert) previously told KJZZ, “We have Labor Day,” when asked if he planned to support creating a new holiday honoring farmworkers.
Democrats also accused Republicans of hypocrisy, citing their support for President Trump as his administration continues to slow-walk the release of all documents in the Epstein Files.
“I stand with all survivors, and we must hold all perpetrators accountable, no matter what office they hold, no matter how powerful they think they are,” said House Minority Leader Oscar De Los Santos (D-Laveen) after referring to a jury decision that found Trump civilly liable for sexually abusing author E. Jean Caroll in 1996.
The governor’s office said Hobbs is exploring other ways to recognize the farmworkers movement.
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