For decades, members of many a city council in California have been proud to call themselves socialists (and behind closed doors these same elected officials admit they’re actually quite fond of communism). Heck, the former poster girl of the Black Panthers, Angela Davis—a woman who has stated, “I’ve always been a communist,”—has long been an esteemed professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz. And then there’s Congresswoman Barbara Lee of Berkeley—another Marxist.
So when I heard there was actually a law on the books preventing communists from legally working in California government I was shocked—obviously no one was paying attention to it.
Enter Assemblyman Rob Bonta, a Democrat from the San Francisco Bay Area. Bonta brought forward AB22, a proposed bill that would overturn the state law enacted during the Red Scare of the 1940s and ’50s, when legitimate fear that communists were trying to infiltrate the U.S. government was rampant. The Cold War-era law made belonging to the Communist Party an offense worthy of termination for public employees. Bonta claimed such provisions have since been ruled unconstitutional. The bill passed the Assembly and was set to sail through the Senate and on to Governor Moonbeam’s (Jerry Brown) desk for signature.
But God bless the Vietnam Vets! They took to the phones, wrote emails and letters, and even showed up at the State Capital to voice their opinion that communism sucks. Many in California, who escaped communism and immigrated to the U.S. from Vietnam, the former Soviet Union, Cuba, and China, also shared their concerns.
It’s rare, but the voices of these patriotic protestors were heard and Bonta pulled the legislation!
Republican Assemblyman Randy Voepel, who fought in the Vietnam War, said communists in North Korea and China “are still a threat.”
Assemblyman Travis Allen, a Republican in Southern California, echoed Assemblyman Voepel, saying, “Communism stands for everything that the United States stands against.”
It doesn’t happen often in the Golden State, but every once in a while those of us not left-of-center score a victory