Arizona House votes to designate annual Victims of Communism Memorial Day

PHOENIX — State lawmakers decided Tuesday that Arizona needs to remember victims of Communism.

The proposal by Rep. Bob Thorpe, R-Flagstaff, approved by the House on a 45-15 vote, would designate every Nov. 7 as Victims of Communism Memorial Day. He said this mirrors similar measures being pushed in other states.

“It’s nothing more than recognizing the people that died under Communism in various countries,” he said.

“Under Stalin we had millions of people that were starved to death,” Thorpe said, referring to the leader of the now-defunct Soviet Union. “In Venezuela, there are people that had food shortages and just real oppression of the people.”

It would not be a paid legal holiday, he said.

Rep. Diego Rodriguez, D-Phoenix, was annoyed by the narrow focus of the measure, House Bill 2259.

“Have we been reduced to this that we’re going to compare the suffering of one group to another and say that the suffering of one group is more profound or tragic than another?” he asked.

Rodriguez said there is a “realistic possibility that fascism is trying to rear its ugly head again in this world,” something he said cost millions of lives.

“Western expansionism victimized an entire continent in Africa,” he continued. “It victimized the native peoples of our own country. And yet we’re going to now pick and choose over what group of victims were more noble in their suffering, in their loss?”

Rep. Isela Blanc, D-Tempe, had a similar theme, saying if lawmakers want to honor and recognize victims, they should start much closer to home.

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“Before we can start going and reviewing and acknowledging and recognizing victims of others we should be recognizing and acknowledging how ‘manifest destiny’ has almost completely ethnicized, genocide our indigenous communities here in our state,” Blanc said.

“That would be a really good first step is acknowledging and recognizing our own atrocities of our own people,” she said.

Thorpe did not dispute the essence of what she was saying. “I’ve been spending a lot of time on the Navajo Nation,” he said. “They’ve had some real atrocities committed to them. Our other tribal nations around the country, the same thing.”

But he pointed out that any lawmaker is free to bring up any resolution or proposal for consideration by the full Legislature.

“If any member wanted to bring forward a day of remembrance for people that have been treated unjustly, I certainly support that,” Thorpe said. But that shouldn’t affect his proposal, he said.

“The reason why we have this bill here is somebody brought it to me and asked me to run it,” Thorpe said. “And I thought it was a great idea.”

The language, he later told Capitol Media Services, came from the American Legislative Exchange Council, a group funded by business interests that proposes model legislation.

After the vote, Thorpe also clarified he was referring to “Communism” with a capital C, meaning the political party, not lower-case communism, which is a political philosophy.

The measure now goes to the Senate.