The last time Congress abolished a monument, President Jimmy Carter was serving out his final weeks in the White House. Nearly 50 years later, Texas Sen. John Cornyn is pressing his colleagues to dust off the rarely used authority to abolish a national monument in California honoring the late César Chávez.
The Texas Republican late last month introduced S. 4205, the “No Funding to Honor Crime Scenes Act,” in the wake of revelations by The New York Times that the late labor leader sexually abused women and girls.
The investigation has spurred cities around the country to consider rechristening the streets, parks and state holidays named after the leader of the farm workers’ movement. Some labor advocates have pushed for local and state governments to instead honor the movement that gathered force in the 1960s to get better working conditions and pay for farm workers.
Cornyn’s measure, co-authored by Louisiana Sen. Bill Cassidy (R), would abolish the César E. Chávez National Monument in Keene, California, and direct that any unobligated funds be allocated instead to a program that supports the FBI’s DNA database.
While Congress could send a message if it approved the legislation — after all, it has abolished fewer than a dozen monuments since adopting the Antiquities Act of 1906, which allows presidents to create such sites — the actual effect of the change at the Chávez site is murkier. The federal government controls just 10.5 acres of land there and owns less than 2 acres.
The majority of the 187-acre site — which includes both the Cesar E. Chávez National Monument and the overlapping Nuestra Señora Reina de la Paz National Historic Landmark — remains privately owned by the National Chávez Center (NCC).
The NCC collaboratively manages the monument with the National Park Service, as outlined in the 2012 proclamation creating the site by then President Barrack Obama.
“The Constitution gives the Congress plenary power over public lands so they can certainly revoke the monument, but I’m not sure I see the point,” said Mark Squillace, a professor in natural resources law at the University of Colorado Law School.
The NCC donated 1.9 acres to the federal government that include the visitor center, Chávez’s office and home, and a memorial garden where the late labor leader’s grave is located. Another 8.6 acres are allocated as an easement for the protection of and access to other historically significant buildings.
The NPS also dedicates a relatively small portion of its budget to the site. The agency reported spending $562,000 in fiscal 2024 and requested $800,000 for the site in fiscal 2025 to add two full-time staff members.
Congress could opt to turn its 2 acres of land back to the NCC, or perhaps to state or local governments. It has previously transferred monument lands — primarily in a spate of actions in the 1950s — back to states including Arizona, Montana, New York, North Dakota, South Carolina and Wyoming or the agencies that oversee the lands, such as the Forest Service.
Cornyn’s bill as introduced does not specify a future use for the land or its ownership. His office did not respond to requests for comment on the record.
The César Chávez Foundation, which operates the NCC, said in a statement it is aware of Cornyn’s bill but urged the Senate to instead “support a renaming process that honors the larger farmworker movement.”
“The Chávez National Monument sits on the site where one of the most significant labor movements in American history was organized, not by one man, but by thousands of farmworkers, families, and organizers who sacrificed enormously for the basic rights and dignity that agricultural workers enjoy today,” the statement reads. “Abolishing the site outright would erase the history of those workers and their struggles.”
California and Colorado have already renamed the “César Chávez Day” held on March 31 in honor of farm workers.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) has indicated he would likely support efforts to rename sites to similarly honor the broader farm worker and labor rights movement.
Although the Trump administration asserts the president has authority to abolish monuments — the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel issued that advice last summer, upending a nearly 90-year-old precedent — the White House has not indicated whether it will do so.
President Donald Trump slashed the footprints of two Utah national monuments in his first term in office. While the Trump administration has weighed changes to numerous sites since his return to the White House, so far the president has largely focused on opening marine monuments to commercial fishing, rather than altering any land-based sites.
Squillace, who served in the Interior Department during the Clinton administration, said even if Congress takes up Cornyn’s bill, he does not see the measure sparking a series of attempts to alter other monuments.
“This is such a unique situation that I doubt it would trigger any broader movement to restrict the designation of monuments,” Squillace said.
