Readers React: Obama in history textbooks

The Times seems to take issue not with the substance of my bill on including Barack Obama’s election as president in California’s history textbooks but with the origin. (“A textbook case of meddling in California,” Editorial, June 15)

I agree that a “coherent, well-structured curriculum and textbooks should be made by educators and academic experts, not by politicians.” This is why my bill leaves the final decision to the state Board of Education, the authority on curriculum.

California’s Constitution charges the Legislature to encourage “by all suitable means the promotion of intellectual, scientific, moral, and agricultural improvement.” Why? Because “general diffusion of knowledge and intelligence” is “essential to the preservation of the rights and liberties of the people.”

I believe the president’s historic election is both worthy of inclusion and an appropriate exercise of legislative authority granted by our Constitution.

This bill has enjoyed near unanimous, bipartisan support in the Legislature. I encourage The Times to reconsider its position.

Assemblyman Chris R. Holden

(D-Pasadena)