Colorado lawmakers are moving to rename César Chávez Day as Farm Workers Day, reckoning with allegations first reported last week that Chávez sexually abused girls and women for years while helping to lead a pivotal social and labor movement.

The measure, House Bill 26-1339, to rename the voluntary state holiday, celebrated on March 31, passed its first House committee on a unanimous vote Monday afternoon. It was introduced on Friday afternoon.

“This bill is not meant to erase history, not to dismiss the labor movement, but because when we choose who we honor in law, we must be willing to reevaluate that honor when harm is brought to light, and we must be willing to center those who, too often, go unheard,” said House Majority Leader Monica Duran, a Wheat Ridge Democrat.

“This bill does more than remove a name,” she said. “It creates something stronger, something broader, something that belongs to the people. It was always meant to recognize our farm workers, because this story has never been about one person.”

She is running the bill alongside Representative Lorena García, an Adams County Democrat. Nearly every representative in the House, Democrats and Republicans alike, are signed on in support. Senator Jessie Danielson, a Jefferson County Democrat, is sponsoring the bill in the Senate.

Chávez, an iconic figure in the Latino community, helped lead the farmworker labor movement that resulted in workers’ right to organize on many farms and improve agricultural working conditions.

The New York Times reported last week that Chávez allegedly groomed and sexually abused two underaged girls and repeatedly raped movement co-leader Dolores Huerta during the height of the movement in the later half of the 20th century. The revelation has spurred officials across the country to rethink the holidays, parks, memorials and streets named in his honor. Denver plans to rename a city holiday and park on Tennyson Street named for the man.

“We have the opportunity to elevate this population, who make it possible for you and I to have food on our tables, who do the grueling work in the grueling heat or the bitter cold so we can feed our families, who work day in and day out so the crops don’t spoil,” García said.

Agriculture in Colorado generates $47 billion in economic activity every year, according to a 2024 brief from nonpartisan Legislative Council Staff. There are close to 200,000 agricultural workers in the state who work across about 30 million acres of farmland.