The California State Assembly passed a bill Monday to allow state employees to be communists — a surprise to observers who may have presumed many state employees were already communists.

The bill, AB 22, would amend existing laws — passed, the Sacramento Bee says, “during the ‘Red Scare’ of the 1940s and ’50s” — that allowed state employees to be fired if they were found to be members of the Communist Party.

Moreover, the bill would delete existing section of the state code declaring California’s official opposition to communism. The section of the state code proposed to be deleted states:

The Legislature of the State of California finds that: (a)There exists a world-wide revolutionary movement to establish a totalitarian dictatorship based upon force and violence rather than upon law. (b)This world-wide revolutionary movement is predicated upon and it is designed and intended to carry into execution the basic precepts of communism as expounded by Marx, Lenin, and Stalin. (c)Pursuant to the objectives of the world communism movement, in numerous foreign countries the legally constituted governments have been overthrown and totalitarian dictatorships established therein against the will of the people, and the establishment of similar dictatorships in other countries is imminently threatening. The successful establishment of totalitarian dictatorships has consistently been aided, accompanied, or accomplished by repeated acts of treachery, deceit, teaching of false doctrines, teaching untruth, together with organized confusion, insubordination, and disloyalty, fostered, directed, instigated, or employed by communist organizations and their members in such countries. (d)Within the boundaries of the State of California there are active disciplined communist organizations presently functioning for the primary purpose of advancing the objectives of the world communism movement, which organizations promulgate, advocate, and adhere to the precepts and the principles and doctrines of the world communism movement. These communist organizations are characterized by identification of their programs, policies, and objectives with those of the world communism movement, and they regularly and consistently cooperate with and endeavor to carry into execution programs, policies and objectives substantially identical to programs, policies, and objectives of such world communism movement. (e)One of the objectives of the world communism movement is to place its members in state and local government positions and in state supported educational institutions. If this objective is successful, propaganda can be disseminated by the members of these organizations among pupils and students by those members who would have the opportunity to teach them and to whom, as teachers, they would look for guidance, authority, and leadership. The members of such groups would use their positions to advocate and teach their doctrines and teach the prescribed Communist Party line group dogma or doctrine without regard to truth or free inquiry. This type of propaganda is sufficiently subtle to escape detection. There is a clear and present danger, which the Legislature of the State of California finds is great and imminent, that in order to advance the program, policies and objectives of the world communism movement, communist organizations in the State of California and their members will engage in concerted effort to hamper, restrict, interfere with, impede, or nullify the efforts of the State and the public agencies of the State to comply with and enforce the laws of the State of California and their members will infiltrate and seek employment by the State and its public agencies.

The new bill, proposed by Assemblymember Rob Bonta (D-Oakland), would leave intact the provisions of the state code that bar state employees who belong to organizations that “advocated the overthrow of the Government of the United States or of any state by force or violence.”

Several Republicans, including Assemblymembers Randy Vopel (R-Santee) and Travis Allen (R-Huntington Beach) spoke out against the bill.

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News. He was named one of the “most influential” people in news media in 2016. He is the co-author of How Trump Won: The Inside Story of a Revolution, is available from Regnery. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.