This week at the Arizona Legislature: House to vote on whether to repeal Cesar Chavez Day

LAUREN GILGER: Let's begin this morning at the [Arizona] Capitol where the full House of Representatives will start voting on bills that have already passed through the Senate and vice versa. It means no bills will be debated in committee this week, but that doesn't mean there won't be topics to debate. And first on tap will be in the House where there will be a vote on whether to accept a repeal that passed through the Senate to repeal Cesar Chavez Day in Arizona.

Howie Fisher of Capitol Media Services will be there for it all. And he joins me now, as he does every Monday during the legislative session, to talk more about it all. Good morning, Howie.

HOWARD FISCHER: Good morning. Yes, gonna be an interesting day given what happened in the Senate last week.

GILGER: Right. So let's talk about that. This repeal of the Cesar Chavez holiday passed through the Senate, but not before Republicans rejected a bid from Democrats to not get rid of it entirely, but to rename it, right?

FISCHER: Exactly. There's a lot of feeling that, look, Cesar Chavez may have been a very flawed individual. We're obviously finding out stuff from the courtesy of the New York Times investigation and even Dolores Huerta, who helped co-found the farmworkers union, saying, "I was a victim." But the question becomes, do you throw out the concept of the farmworkers and how important they were to the farming community, particularly the Latino community here in Arizona and across the West?

Because there are things that have changed. For example, we have Sally Ann Gonzales who got up on the floor and said, "Look, as a child I was out in those fields, but my mother was out in those fields." She put on the gloves that her mother wore to pick cotton and said, "Why do you want to erase my history here?"

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So there's a lot of feelings attached to it. The Republicans have been sort of non-committal. I mean, going from people like John Kavanagh saying, "Well, you know, what about a police day and a firefighter's day and a lawyer's day and a plumber's day." Which sort of misses the point of the nature of the movement.

About the best we got was Sen. Tim Dunn, who represents Yuma, which is part of the farmworker area, saying, "Well, maybe we'll come back at some other point and do a farmworker day." but it's not going to happen. Obviously the rush is tomorrow is Cesar Chavez holiday, at least at 9:10 a.m. it is. And we'll have to find out what happens.

The idea is the House will approve what the Senate approved, send us to the governor, presuming the governor will act on it before the holiday. But you know, with this governor, who knows?

GILGER: OK, so now let's turn to another bill we want to talk about, Howie, this is HB 2575. It's billed as an effort to prevent the teaching of antisemitism in public schools and universities in Arizona. But there's debate here that has divided even Jewish organizations over this. So we're going to spend a few extra minutes this morning talking about that.

First, Howie, what does this legislation do?

FISCHER: It's designed to prevent what they call hostile education environments in public schools and in public colleges and universities. And that means where somebody feels so picked on, it's so severe that they can't learn, they can't participate in all the services there. Again, nobody is in favor of doing that. Whether it's antisemitism or anything else.

The problem becomes the definition of antisemitism that would be included in law. And it's taken from something called the International Holocaust Remembrance Association Alliance ... And it's designed to provide some examples of what is antisemitism. For example, if you make the statement, "Well, the media is controlled by Jews." You know, that sort of antisemitic. It's also not true. And so you get the questions: Are you feeding a lie there?

But where it gets problematic is where you start saying, well, what if you say that denying the Jewish people the right to self determination, does that mean that Israel should or should not exist? I mean, this is a battle that's been going back, you know, long before the birth of Christ in terms of folks who have invaded the Holy Land.

And then you, you've got a really broad one that would make it antisemitic to, "drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis." And there's a lot of fear that given what's going on in Gaza and what's going on in southern Lebanon, anybody who would comment on that would be accused of being antisemitic ... as opposed to talking about the politics of it. And that's where we're stuck right now.

GILGER: Yeah, and there's obviously a lot of nuances in that. Talk about the divide within Jewish groups here. Like, not all even agree that this is a good way to address the problem. There was really emotional testimony, it sounds like, on both sides.

FISCHER: Oh, definitely. You know, we had some people who testified said, "Look, I know what antisemitism is." One woman said, "Look, I grew up a couple of blocks from a beach where it said, you know, no Jews, no black, no Negroes, no dogs." And so there's obviously blatant forms of it there. She's questioning whether a lot of what's in this bill would be considered antisemitic.

There are other folks who suggest that to the extent that antisemitism and Jews are getting special treatment in law, you're only engendering more hatred toward Jews. But there are others who say, look at what happened in Germany in particular.

There were people who were German citizens who said, "This can't happen here. We're citizens. Yeah, there's few comments about Jews owning banks and things like that, but nothing can go wrong." And as we saw, a lot did go wrong. And they say you gotta nip this in the bud or you're going to have problems down the road.

And that's where the separation comes in. And you've got a lot of folks who had personal testimony. Hildy Angius, who's a senator who is pushing one of the senators who's pushing the bill said, "Look, I'm Jewish. I've had people who I consider friends coming up to me and making antisemitic slurs."

And so it's gotten very personal, and we're going to have to see what happens with the bill. Because you — a lot of people are very divided in terms of is this the remedy for the problem.

GILGER: Right, right. Gov. Hobbs rejected similar legislation last year. This may meet a veto again, obviously because of that. What did she say last time, and has she given any indication how she might look at this one this time around?

FISCHER: Well, what she said last time is look, — it's typical gubernatorial veto — "Look at all the things I've done for the Jewish community. Look at the support I've given. We've got a Holocaust center now in Phoenix." She was there for the groundbreaking.

But she also said given the divide in the community — leaving aside the questions of First Amendment and all the rest of it — I'm not sure that I want to wait in the middle of this.

And it gives her a place to land because for the moment, as far as this year's bill goes, there isn't a single Democrat who has voted for it. Now, so it becomes a partisan issue. What's interesting is that some Democrats who voted for virtually the identical bill last year did not vote for it this year.

They seem to be a little reticent every time I call and say "What changed?" And I think they're saying, "I don't want to get involved with this. This is one of those hot-button issues that I just, you know, don't want to be be tarred with one way or the other." There's a lot of sensitivity about this.

There's also a question of the legality of the thing. Apparently, there was some similar language put into a Texas law. And a federal judge responding to a complaint by, you know, students from Palestine, said you cannot enforce it in Texas. So even if the governor were to sign might be challenged here.