California Senate Endorses Walk-Out

Hat Tip: The Ed Wonks

The California State Senate passed a resolution

on Thursday endorsed Monday's boycott of schools, jobs and stores by illegal immigrants and their allies as supporters equated the protest with great social movements in American history.

By a 24-13 vote that split along party lines, the Senate approved a resolution that calls the one-day protest the Great American Boycott 2006 and describes it as an attempt to educate Americans "about the tremendous contribution immigrants make on a daily basis to our society and economy."

"It's one day ... for immigrants to tell the country peacefully, 'We matter ... (we're) not invisible,'" said Senate Majority Leader Gloria Romero, D-Los Angeles, the resolution's chief author. She said immigrants make up a third of California's labor force and a quarter of its residents.

This is a truly bad move politically and just adds more fuel to the fire of anti-immigrant backlash.

The Ed Wonks discuss the matter in terms for attendance at school, which is compulsory and with the State Senate's resolution, appears to be a situation where the state government has endorsed non-attendance because it is a matter of peaceful non-violent protest.

Having said that, the use of the boycott as a method of non-violent protest by Americans is a time-honored tradition. It is our view that the simple act of not patronizing a business or industry is a valid form of protest that can be highly effective.

However, we are disappointed that our state's senate has chosen to officially endorsed this boycott. But we are even more disappointed that these men and women masquerading-as-lawmakers didn't write anything in their resolution specifically expressing their non-support of those aspects of the boycott that are aimed at schools.

In our eyes, those men and women of the California Senate who voted for this resolution have done our state's children a grave disservice by encouraging them and their parents to break the law.

Even though we've had our disagreements with some of State Superintendent Jack O'Connell's (bio here) public statements, we applaud him for going on the record and stating in no uncertain terms that that this school boycott in not in the best interest of the children.