It seems more than a little surprising to me, but the Washington state Legislature is finally getting around to repealing the 1951 Subversive Activities Act, passed in the middle of the post-war Red Scare, which created the notorious legislative Canwell Committee that conducted innumerable witch hunts that ran roughshod over the civil liberties of hundreds, if not thousands, of innocent Washingtonians in the 1950s.

HB 2251, sponsored by Rep. Joe Fitzgibbon of Burien, would finally repeal the long-dormant unconstitutional statute and consign it to the trash can where it belongs. Former U.S. Sen. Harry P. Cain, R-Wash., who worked so hard more than 50 years ago at the national level as a member of the Eisenhower Administration to counter similar abuses of power by Senator Joseph McCarthy, would be proud of him.

However, I am not surprised that one of our own legislators, Rep. Brad Klippert, is one of a small handful of Republican legislators opposing the law's repeal. Rather than fighting for our freedoms as he often suggests, Klippert's position on this issue suggests that he supports outdated and unconstitutional efforts to suppress our civil liberties.

C. Mark Smith, Richland