California's top legislative leaders announced Thursday they will pass legislation renaming the state's Cesar Chavez Day holiday to Farmworkers Day — a seismic response to revelations that the revered labor leader sexually abused women, including his co-founder Dolores Huerta.

Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas and Senate President pro Tempore Monique Limón said the bill will move before the end of March. Gov. Gavin Newsom, who has ultimate veto power, said Wednesday he was open to changing the holiday's name but stopped short of a commitment.

Huerta, now nearly 96 years old, broke a 60-year silence this week, revealing she was among women and girls who say they were sexually abused by Chavez while he led the United Farm Workers union. In a statement issued Wednesday, Huerta described being "pressured and later forced" into sexual encounters with Chavez, resulting in two pregnancies she kept secret for decades. "I am telling my story because the New York Times has indicated that I was not the only one," Huerta wrote. "Women are coming forward, sharing that they were sexually abused and assaulted by Cesar when they were girls and teenagers."

The fallout has been swift and broad. Washington Gov. Bob Ferguson said he will not issue a proclamation honoring Cesar Chavez Day this year. The California Museum announced it will remove Chavez from the state's Hall of Fame. Celebrations in Texas and Arizona, his home state, have been canceled at the request of the Cesar Chavez Foundation.

For San Diego County's large agricultural workforce — many of whom live and work in communities stretching from East County into the Imperial Valley — the allegations carry particular weight. Chavez's legacy has been central to labor organizing in the region for generations. At Grossmont College in El Cajon, which is concurrently hosting a Holocaust awareness exhibition on civic courage and silence, community members are now grappling with the painful complexity of separating a movement's achievements from its leader's actions. "The farmworker movement has always been bigger and far more important than any one individual," Huerta wrote in her statement.