Arizona's Gov. Katie Hobbs is doing away with today's state holiday to honor the late farmworker rights leader Cesar Chavez after allegations he abused and raped young girls and fellow activist Dolores Huerta.
In San Luis, where Chavez died in 1993, Mayor Nieves Riedel and city council members are keeping the city holiday with offices closed. However, they are going to discuss later whether to keep March 31 as a city holiday and rename it Farm Workers' Day or choose another day off for city employees in 2027.
Typically, the city requires 30 days for such a change to take effect. Because there was only less than one week until March 31st when the council met last Wednesday and not all council members were present, the decision was made to keep city offices closed.
The council will discuss at a later meeting whether to rename the March 31 holiday next year in honor of farmworkers or whether to select another holiday for 2027. City Manager Jenny Torres said the day before Christmas is one possibility.
City councilmembers approved a resolution in 2019 adding March 31 as a holiday to honor Chavez. He was born near Yuma and died in San Luis.
Gov. Hobbs will sign legislation repealing the state holiday which had honored the labor leader.
Press aide Christian Slater made the statement just hours after the Arizona House approved the repeal with just eight dissenting votes. All said they agreed with the majority but objected to the refusal of Republicans to consider renaming the holiday -- set for March 31 each year -- to honor the farmworker movement.
The announcement of the governor's intent also came despite a last-ditch bid by Sen. Sally Ann Gonzales, the lone negative vote when it cleared the Senate last Thursday, to get Hobbs to veto it.
Gonzales, like the eight Democrats who voted against the measure, said she agrees that Chavez, accused of sexually assaulting at least two young girls in the farmworker movement in the 1970s, does not deserve the recognition.
The Tucson Democrat said, however, it was wrong of Senate Republicans to even allow a vote on several of her proposals. One would have designated March 31 as Farmworker Day and encouraged Arizonans to "pay tribute to the farmworkers of his state, both past and present, for the extraordinary contributions to the labor and civil rights movements.''
But Gonzales, in her letter to Hobbs, said action on the bill -- crafted in a way to take effect the moment the governor signs it -- is illegal.
The key to immediate action is for lawmakers to approve a measure with a two-thirds vote. That happened here, with the 48-8 vote in the House on Monday following the 29-1 approval by the Senate last week.
It also has to include an "emergency clause.'' HB 2072 has it.
But Gonzales said the Arizona Constitution says such clauses are allowed only if the measure separately states "why it is necessary that it shall become immediately effective.'' Instead, the senator said, the legislation contains just boilerplate language declaring it "an emergency measure that it necessary to preserve the public peace, health or safety'' -- and nothing more.
About the closest need to an "emergency'' is that state law, approved in 2000, designated March 31 every year -- the birthdate of the labor leader -- as a holiday. But it is an unpaid holiday, akin to similar laws for Arbor Day and Purple Heart Day.
There was no immediate response from the governor's office to the letter.
The dissenting House Democrats who spoke Monday all said it was necessary to act quickly to send the message that the state should not be honoring someone who the New York Times reported sexually abused two girls inn the 1970s. Dolores Huerta, cofounder of the United Farmworkers Union, also said she was coerced to have sex by Chavez once and raped once.
But they agreed with Gonzales that it was disrespectful of Senate Republicans, who rapidly crafted the outright repeal last week, to not consider Democratic proposals to also renaming the day on behalf of farmworkers.
"We have people in the movement like my grandparents that were doing the work,'' said Rep. Anna Abeytia.
"Some of the people were just the face of things,'' said the Phoenix Democrat. "And not including us in the conversation is honestly super disrespectful. And it hurts the people that are still alive today that have done the work.''
"I just can't in good faith support something that does not honor the people who made the movement possible,'' said Tucson Democratic Rep. Consuelo Hernandez.
"Just outright repealing this is not a thing I can stand for,'' said Rep. Alma Hernandez, also a Tucson Democrat.
Others, however, said it was more important to act immediately to honor the girls who were victimized by Chavez, even though the bill made no mention of the farmworker movement.
"When we heard the news that two women had come forward, and later Dolores Huerta, reporting that they had been sexually abused by Cesar Chavez, I and many around the country believed them,'' said Rep. Patty Contreras. "We quickly moved to condemn his actions by removing his name and likeness from murals, street names, statues and buildings.''
The Phoenix Democrat said she is "disappointed'' by Chavez. But she used the opportunity to make a political point.
"I am also disappointed that the voices of many women who were sexually assaulted as girls are not being heard,'' she said. "Release the Epstein files.''
House Minority Leader Oscar De Los Santos, who voted for repeal of the holiday, also used the opportunity to argue that, despite a federal law and assurances from the Department of Justice, there appear to be many pieces missing from the files of what the federal government knows about the actions about the abuse and rape of young girls not just by Epstein but others in his orbit.
"I echo the calls ... to stand with all victims, no matter who the perpetrator is, including if the perpetrator is the president of the United States,'' said the Laveen Democrat. And he said it's about more than Epstein, pointing out that Trump was found liable by a civil jury of sexually abusing author E. Jean Carroll and ordered him to pay $5 million.
That drew a rebuke by Speaker Pro-tem Neal Carter. He said that under House rules they are not relevant to the question before lawmakers: repeal of the Chavez holiday.
Democrats weren't the only ones trying to link the debate over Chavez to one of their political issues.
"My mother actually also worked out in the fields,'' said Rep. Teresa Martinez, working there as young as 8 years old. "I know that it was a very difficult, very grueling life.''
The Casa Grande Republican said what makes her sad is there was a lot of sexual abuse of many of the young people who worked in the fields.
"And I believe that those people were taken advantage of,'' she told colleagues. "But it's also important to remember that a lot of that crime happened because there were a lot of illegal aliens working in the crops.''
She noted the statement that people should be held accountable, regardless of how powerful they are.
"If you commit a sexual assault on anyone, you should be punished -- and doubly so if you are in this country illegally,'' Martinez said.
"Those assaults should not be overlooked,'' she said. "But those survivors don't seem to get the same kind of support.''
There was no response to her comments during the vote.
Martinez told Capitol Media Services after the vote that she has no problem with Democrats demanding accountability involving Epstein. But she said there hasn't been the same outcry when young girls are assaulted and murdered by people who are not here legally, people like Laken Riley, a nursing student who was murdered in 2024 by a Venezuelan man in this country illegally.
"I think it's hypocritical,'' she said.
"That's insane for her to suggest that on her end,'' De Los Santos responded in his own comments to Capitol Media Services. If nothing else, he said, the data doesn't back her claims.
"It is crystal clear that undocumented people commit crimes at lower rates than U.S. citizens,'' De Los Santos said.
"But, also, we condemn and fully regret sexual violence, rape, of any sort of variety,'' he said, disputing Martinez's characterization of Democrats. "I think she was desperate to turn the conversation away from the fact that we were rightfully calling out the Republicans'' over their silence on the Epstein files and the president's own civil verdict in the E. Jean Carroll case.
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