The California Assembly is considering a bill that would replace either Abraham Lincoln’s or George Washington’s birthday with — ugh — International Socialist Workers’ Day.
Perhaps using a theory that “if you can’t persuade a person by using logic, try going for the pocketbook,” some legislators in a state known for burdensome regulation, high taxes, and social engineering are turning their eye toward advancing socialist values by decreeing a paid holiday for residents.
California Democrat Assemblyman Miguel Santiago introduced Bill AB-3042 last Thursday, which would allow schools to combine one of America’s early presidential birthdays with Presidents Day (February 18) and install an “International Workers’ Day” — known as “May Day” in other countries — as a second holiday, on May 1.
“This doesn’t surprise me at all,” a 49-year-old Washington state resident told LifeZette. “I grew up in Monterey, and the California I knew as a kid is gone.”
“I’m aghast that a bill like this would be able to get through committee,” California Republican Assemblyman Matthew Harper said to the assembly, reported The Daily Caller (see Harper speak in the Facebook video below).
“Are we in competition to be the laughingstock of the United States?” he added.
Today, I argued against a bill that proposed to drop Lincoln's Birthday or Washington's Birthday as a school holiday and instead adopt International Socialist Workers' Day, aka May Day, in its place.
Posted by Assemblyman Matthew Harper on Thursday, May 10, 2018
“Are we going that far to the Left?” Harper continued. “This is ridiculous; this is insane; this is un-American. And for folks who think that the U.S. won the Cold War with the Soviet Union, this makes it sound like we’re going in the other direction — that California is kowtowing to the Soviet domination of the Cold War.”
Related: ‘Emotion Is Clouding’ California’s ‘Good Judgment,’ Escondido Mayor Says
The assembly read the bill three times Thursday and refused to pass it, by a 27-22 vote.
But Santiago submitted a motion to reconsider it on the same day, reported The Daily Caller.
Bill AB-3042 previously passed both the assembly’s appropriations and education committees.
Presented with absurdity, @AsmHarper and @asmMelendez rightly stood up and called out a proposal to let school districts recognize a socialist holiday for the foolishness that it is, writes SCNG editorial writer Sal Rodriguez. #tcot #tlot @CAGOP https://t.co/NDVGKSIY2n
— SoCalOpinion (@SoCalOpinion) May 14, 2018
Deirdre Reilly is a senior editor with LifeZette.
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