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Lawmaker Pulls California Legislation on Cold War-era Communist Ban

by Associated Press

   SACRAMENTO, CALIF. --

   A bill that would have let communists legally work in California
   government was withdrawn Wednesday after the sponsor said he learned it
   caused veterans and Vietnamese-Americans "distress and hurt."

   Assemblyman Rob Bonta, a Democrat from the San Francisco Bay Area,
   announced he was shelving the bill and apologized to veterans and
   people who fled the communist regime in Vietnam.

   His bill, AB22, would have repealed part of state law enacted during
   the Red Scare of the 1940s and '50s, when fear that communists were
   trying to infiltrate the U.S. government was rampant. The Cold War-era
   law made belonging to the Communist Party a fireable offense for public
   employees.

   Bonta said such provisions have since been ruled unconstitutional.
   Under his bill, employees could still have been fired for belonging to
   organizations they know advocate overthrowing the government by force
   or violence.

   The state Assembly narrowly approved the bill last week. Some Assembly
   Republicans spoke forcefully against the measure before voting against
   it.

   Republican Assemblyman Randy Voepel, who fought in the Vietnam War,
   said communists in North Korea and China were "still a threat."

   "This bill is blatantly offensive to all Californians," said
   Assemblyman Travis Allen, a Republican a coastal district in Southern
   California. "Communism stands for everything that the United States
   stands against."

   Assemblyman Ash Kalra, one of Bonta's fellow Democrats, praised his
   colleague for shelving the bill, saying it caused pain for many of his
   constituents.