California State Assembly Passes Law Allowing Communists to Work in Government
Isn’t California supposed to drop off into the ocean at some point?
The California State Assembly passed a bill Monday that would repeal a Red Scare policy that made being a member of the Communist Party while working for the state a fireable offense.
Democratic Assemblyman Rob Bonta created Assembly Bill 22 to eliminate any reference to communism in current laws, including the statute making Communist Party membership a cause for dismissal, the Los Angeles Times reported.
If passed by the State Senate, the law would overturn legislation that was passed during the Red Scare of the 1940s and 1950s.
“It’s an old and archaic reference,” Bonta told the Times, saying the legislation was “really just a technical fix to remove that reference to a label that could be misused or abused, and frankly, has been in the past, in some of the darker chapters of our history in this country.”
Republican members of the assembly did not agree.
“The whole concept of communism and Communist Party members working for the state of California is against everything we stand for on this floor,” Republican Assemblyman Randy Voepel argued, adding that the political ideology communists hold is still a threat.
Assembly Bill 22 was passed along party lines on Monday with a majority of Republicans opposing the legislation. The measure will now head to the State Senate.
