Californians are set to have a new paid holiday if Gov. Jerry Brown gets his way. The California Assembly discussed Thursday a bill that will replace Abraham Lincoln or George Washington’s birthday with International Socialist Workers’ Day as a paid holiday in the state.
California Democrat Assemblyman Miguel Santiago introduced Bill AB-3042, which will replace Washington Day and Lincoln Day with Presidents’ Day and install an “International Workers’ Day” — conventionally known as “May Day” — as a second holiday, as reported by the Daily Caller. .
However the bill has met with fierce resistance from Republicans in the state who argue that a day celebrating international socialism is “insane” and “un-American”.
“I’m aghast that a bill like this would be able to get through committee,” California Republican Assemblyman Matthew Harper said to the Assembly. “Are we in competition to be the laughing stock of the United States?”
“Are we going that far to the left?” Harper asked. “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 indeed California is kowtowing to the Soviet domination of the Cold War.”
“And indeed, in that kitchen debate Khruschev had with Nixon, oh my God, was Khruschev right, Mr. Author?”
The California Assembly read the bill three times and refused to pass it by a narrow 27-22 vote on Thursday. But Santiago, known in Californian political circles as Gov. Brown’s “little Goebbels”, refused to accept defeat and submitted a motion to reconsider the bill. Disturbingly, Bill AB-3042 had previously passed both the Assembly’s appropriations and education committees.