SENATE RULES COMMITTEE SR 33
Office of Senate Floor Analyses
(916) 651-1520 Fax: (916) 327-4478
THIRD READING
Bill No: SR 33
Author: Pérez (D), et al.
Introduced: 3/28/25
Vote: Majority
SUBJECT: The Armenian Genocide
SOURCE: Author
DIGEST: This resolution recognizes April 24, 2025 as “State of California Day
of Commemoration of the 110th Anniversary of the Armenian Genocide of 1915–
1923”.
ANALYSIS: This resolution makes the following legislative findings:
1) The Armenian nation was subjected to a systematic and premeditated genocide
officially beginning on April 24, 1915, at the hands of the Young Turk
Government of the Ottoman Empire from 1915 to 1919, inclusive, and
continued at the hands of the Kemalist Movement of Turkey from 1920 to
1923, inclusive, whereby over 1.5 million Armenian men, women, and children
were slaughtered or marched to their deaths in an effort to annihilate the
Armenian nation in the first genocide of modern times, while thousands of
surviving Armenian women and children were forced to convert to Islam and be
raised as non-Armenians and hundreds of thousands more were subjected to
ethnic cleansing during the period of the modern Republic of Turkey from 1924
to 1937.
2) In response to the genocide and at the behest of President Woodrow Wilson and
the United States Department of State, the Near East Relief organization was
founded and became the first congressionally sanctioned American
philanthropic effort created exclusively to provide humanitarian assistance and
rescue to the Armenian nation and other Christian minorities from annihilation,
who went on to survive and thrive outside of their ancestral homeland all over
the world and specifically in this state.
3) The United States is on record as having officially recognized the Armenian
Genocide in the United States government’s May 28, 1951, written statement to
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the International Court of Justice regarding the Reservations to the Convention
on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, through President
Ronald Reagan’s April 22, 1981, Proclamation No. 4838, and by congressional
legislation including House Joint Resolution 148 adopted on April 9, 1975, and
House Joint Resolution 247 adopted on September 12, 1984.
4) California is home to the largest Armenian American population in the United
States, and Armenians living in California have enriched our state through their
leadership and contribution in business, agriculture, academia, government, and
the arts, many of whom have family members who experienced firsthand the
horror and evil of the Armenian Genocide and its ongoing denial.
This resolution recognizes the extraordinary service that was delivered by Near
East Relief to the survivors of the Armenian Genocide, including thousands of
direct beneficiaries of American philanthropy who are the parents, grandparents,
and great-grandparents of many Californian Armenians, and pledges its intent,
through this resolution, to working with community groups, nonprofit
organizations, citizens, state personnel, and the community at large to host
statewide educational and cultural events.
Related/Prior Legislation
SR 83 (Wilk, 2024) –Adopted by the Senate.
SR 28 (Portantino, 2023) –Adopted by the Senate.
HR 26 (Friedman, 2023) –Adopted by the Assembly.
SR 82 (Durazo, 2022) – Adopted by the Senate.
SR 29 (Archuleta, 2021) – Adopted by the Senate.
HR 21 (Nazarian, 2021) –Adopted by the Assembly.
FISCAL EFFECT: Appropriation: No Fiscal Com.: No Local: No
SUPPORT: (Verified 4/9/25)
None received
OPPOSITION: (Verified 4/9/25)
Republic of Turkiye Turkish Consulate General in Los Angeles, Sinan Kuzum
Prepared by: Sofia Pachon-Mendez / SFA / (916) 651-1520
4/9/25 15:53:10
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