“We are very pleased to award the Theodore Roosevelt American Unity award for the 110th Congress to Representative Steve King of Iowa,” ProEnglish Executive Director K.C. McAlpin announced today at a brief presentation ceremony on Capitol Hill.
The award is given biennially to recognize the legislator in every Congress whose leadership in working to preserve and protect the nation’s linguistic unity in the English language best exemplifies U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt’s commitment to American national unity. The recipient is chosen by ProEnglish’s national board of directors.
King’s signature bill, H.R. 997, “The English Language Unity Act,” has attracted the bipartisan support of 152 members of the House of Representatives, more than one third of the entire House. Despite this enormous level of support and polls that consistently show an overwhelming majority of 83 to 87 percent of the American people – including solid majorities of minority voters – want to make English our official English, the House leadership has refused to take up his bill,” McAlpin said.
