Bill Text: CA SCR112 | 2017-2018 | Regular Session | Chaptered
Bill Title: Cesar Chavez Memorial Highway.
Spectrum: Partisan Bill (Democrat 1-0)
Status: (Passed) 2018-07-06 - Chaptered by Secretary of State. Res. Chapter 118, Statutes of 2018. [SCR112 Detail]
Download: California-2017-SCR112-Chaptered.html
| Senate Concurrent Resolution No. 112 |
| CHAPTER 118 |
Relative to the Cesar Chavez Memorial Highway.
[
Filed with
Secretary of State
July 06, 2018.
]
LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL'S DIGEST
SCR 112, Leyva.
Cesar Chavez Memorial Highway.
This measure would designate a specified portion of Interstate 215 in the County of San Bernardino as the Cesar Chavez Memorial Highway. The measure would also request the Department of Transportation to determine the cost of appropriate signs showing this special designation and, upon receiving donations from nonstate sources covering the cost, to erect those signs.
Digest Key
Fiscal Committee: YESBill Text
WHEREAS, Cesar Estrada Chavez was born in Yuma, Arizona on March 31, 1927, to Juana and Librado Chavez and was one of seven children; and
WHEREAS, The Chavez family lost their store and farm in 1937, and became migrant farm workers in California; and
WHEREAS, In order to help support his family and spare his mother from the burden of working in the fields, Cesar Chavez, after having only completed the eighth grade, became a farm worker under contract to do agricultural and railroad work; and
WHEREAS, In 1946, Cesar Chavez joined the United States Navy, served two years in the Pacific, and later married Helen Febela in 1947; and
WHEREAS, In 1952, when Fred Ross recruited Cesar Chavez into the Community Service Organization (CSO), Chavez became a community organizer, first coordinating voter registration drives and eventually rising to head the organization; and
WHEREAS, Cesar Chavez left the CSO in 1962 and moved to Delano, California to start the National Farm Workers Association (NFWA), where he was joined by Dolores Huerta, Gilbert Padilla, Jim Drake, and others; and
WHEREAS, Inspired by the struggle of Mahatma Gandhi and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Cesar Chavez began the nonviolent Delano grape strike in 1965 and the mostly Mexican NFWA joined the Filipino Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee (AWOC); and
WHEREAS, Farm workers marched 300 miles from the community of Delano to the State Capitol in Sacramento in a pilgrimage that ended on Easter Sunday; and
WHEREAS, The NFWA signed its first contract with Schenley Industries, Inc., a liquor conglomerate with a small grape ranch, and the NFWA and AWOC merged to become the United Farm Workers Organizing Committee (UFWOC) of the United Farm Workers (UFW); and
WHEREAS, In 1967, striking farm workers and supporters began a national boycott of California table grapes and Cesar Chavez began a fast in 1968 in Delano that lasted for 25 days; and
WHEREAS, The UFW signed three-year contracts with the Delano growers in 1970, ending the grape strike and boycott; and
WHEREAS, When Salinas County lettuce and vegetable growers signed with the Teamsters Union, the UFW protested the deal and declared a strike and boycott; and
WHEREAS, In 1972, the UFW was admitted as a full member to the AFL-CIO, won a majority of union elections, and California passed the California Agricultural Labor Relations Act (CALRA), the first law that recognized the rights of farm workers to organize and bargain collectively; and
WHEREAS, Cesar Chavez, who was an American labor leader and a civil rights activist, died on April 23, 1993; and
WHEREAS, His funeral in the community of Delano was attended by more than 40,000 people, and Arturo S. Rodriguez was named the new UFW president; and
WHEREAS, In 1994, Cesar Chavez was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President William J. Clinton; and
WHEREAS, California established March 31 in 2000 as a state holiday in honor of Cesar Chavez; and
WHEREAS, The Cesar E. Chavez commemorative stamp was issued by the United States Postal Service in 2003; and
WHEREAS, As of 2009, eight states, Arizona, California, Colorado, Minnesota, New Mexico, Texas, Utah, and Wisconsin, have recognized Cesar Chavez’s birthday, March 31, as a state holiday; and
WHEREAS, In 2012, President Barack H. Obama established the Cesar E. Chavez National Monument in Keene in the County of Kern, California; now, therefore, be it
Resolved by the Senate of the State of California, the Assembly thereof concurring, That the Legislature hereby designates the portion of Interstate 215 from post mile 12.75 to the interchange of Interstates 215 and 15, post mile 17.75, in the County of San Bernardino as the Cesar Chavez Memorial Highway; and be it further
Resolved, That the Department of Transportation is requested to determine the cost of appropriate signs consistent with the signing requirements for the state highway system showing this special designation and, upon receiving donations from nonstate sources sufficient to cover that cost, to erect those signs; and be it further
Resolved, That the Secretary of the Senate transmit copies of this resolution to the Director of Transportation and to the author for appropriate distribution.
