Yesterday by a vote of 54-42, the Ohio State House of Representatives passed State Rep. Robert Mecklenborg’s (R-30) bill, H.B. 477 that would make English the official language of Ohio.
H.B. 477 is expected to come to the floor of the State Senate sometime this fall. If it passes the legislature, Ohio could join the 30-state majority of states that have already declared English their official language.
Four Hispanic families in Wichita, Kansas filed a federal discrimination lawsuit against St. Anne Catholic School over its policy requiring students to speak English during the school day. The complaint claims the English policy discriminates against the students on the basis of their “national origin,” which is barred by federal law.
The school says it adopted the English policy to stop alleged bullying and harassment by Spanish-speaking students. The plaintiffs claim the initial reason the school gave was not to prevent bullying, but to immerse students in English. The plaintiffs have asked the court to issue an injunction barring all Catholic schools in St. Anne’s diocese from adopting similar language policies until the case is decided.
The Ohio State House’s State Government and Elections Committee passed H.B. 477 today by a vote of 11-2. Introduced by State Rep. Robert Mecklenborg (R-30) the bill would make English the official language of state government operations, and is expected to come to the House floor for a vote as early as next week.
A Mason-Dixon poll last fall found 77 percent of Ohioans in favor of making English the official language.
Democrats in the Oklahoma State Senate killed a referendum that would have given voters a chance to vote on making English the official language of Oklahoma. Twenty-four (24) Democratic Senators joined lone Republican State Senator Harry Coates and voted to kill Senate Bill 163, by substituting a Democratic version that would have protected government bureaucrats providing services in foreign languages. Except for Coates, all Republican State Senators present voted against the Democratic substitute.
Led by Oklahoma State Representative Randy Terrill, the Oklahoma State House earlier voted to pass S.B. 163 by a vote of 70-28.
A January 2008 poll by the Tulsa World and KOTV-Channel 6 found that 88 percent of Oklahomans support making English the official language of the state, including 93 percent of Republicans and 84 percent of Democrats. The poll of 757 registered voters had a margin of error of 3.6 percentage points.
ProEnglish and fifteen national organizations released a letter to President Bush protesting the Administration’s policy of letting Mexican truck drivers demonstrate their required English proficiency by answering questions in Spanish.
The letter responded to a March Senate oversight hearing at which U.S. Secretary of Transportation Mary Peters said that Mexicans driving trucks into the United States under the Administration’s border demonstration project are designated “proficient in English” even if they have to use Spanish to explain the meaning of U.S. traffic signs.
Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration regulations that regulate U.S. trucking companies require drivers to “read and speak the English language sufficiently to converse with the general public, to understand highway traffic signs and signals in the English language, to respond to official inquiries, and to make entries on reports and records.”
Besides ProEnglish, organizations signing the letter included the America’s Independent Truckers’ Association, Eagle Forum, US Business and Industry Council, Coalitions for America, and Concerned Women for America. The complete text of the letter is available on the ProEnglish website.
