May 26, 2006

Dear Colleague,

I would like to bring this column by George Will to your attention. He
points out many serious problems with the Voting Rights Reauthorization
(HR 9), an issue currently before this body. The Voting Rights Act
Reauthorization would extend the multilingual voting mandate for 25
years, until 2032.

Sincerely,

/s

STEVE KING

Member of Congress

**A Vote For English**

by George F. Will

May 25^th^, 2006, *The Washington Post*

\"Of course not.\" That was Attorney General Alberto Gonzales\'s answer
Sunday on ABC\'s \"This Week\" when asked whether he would favor
prohibiting bilingual ballots.

\"Of course not\"? Did he mean, \"This is not something about which
decent people differ\"?

To understand why millions of conservatives do not trust Washington to
think clearly or act reasonably about immigration, consider bilingual
ballots. These conservatives, already worried that both the rule of law
and national identity are becoming attenuated because of illegal
immigration, now have another worry: The federal government\'s chief law
enforcement official may need a refresher course on federal law
pertaining to legal immigrants.

In 1906, the year before a rabbi in a Passover sermon coined the phrase
\"melting pot\" during torrential immigration from Eastern and Southern
Europe, Congress passed, and President Theodore Roosevelt signed,
legislation requiring people seeking to become naturalized citizens to
demonstrate oral English fluency. In 1950 the requirement was
strengthened to require people to \"demonstrate an understanding of the
English language, including an ability to read, write, and speak words
in ordinary usage in the English language.\"

Hence, if someone needs a ballot written in a language other than
English, that need proves the person obtained citizenship only because
the law was not enforced when he or she sought citizenship. So one
reason for ending ballots in languages other than English is that
continuing them makes a mockery of the rule of law, including even the
prospective McCain-Kennedy law that pro-immigration groups favor.

It contains several requirements that those aspiring to citizenship
demonstrate \"a knowledge of the English language\" or \"English
fluency\" in order \"to promote the patriotic integration of prospective
citizens into the American way of life\" and into \"American common
values and traditions.\" How can legislators support language such as
that and ballots in multiple languages?

Fifty-six House Republicans have sent a letter, instigated by Rep. Steve
King of Iowa, asking that Section 203 of the Voting Rights Act be
allowed to expire. When the measure was enacted in 1965, it said nothing
about bilingual ballots. Section 203, requiring bilingual ballots in
jurisdictions with certain demographic characteristics, was added in the
1975 extension of the act. The King letter was sent to Rep. James
Sensenbrenner of Wisconsin, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee.
He favors extending Section 203 and the rest of the act until 2032
because it helps facilitate \"the participation of language minority
citizens in the political process.\"

But what public good is advanced by encouraging the participation of
people who, by saying they require bilingual assistance, are saying they
cannot understand the nation\'s political conversation? By receiving
such assistance they are receiving a disincentive to become proficient
in English.

It takes political bravery to propose pruning the Voting Rights Act,
given the predictable charges of racism that are hurled so promiscuously
nowadays. Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, for example, has a
liberal\'s reflex for discerning racism everywhere and for shouting
\"racist\" as a substitute for argument. During Senate debate last week
on a measure to declare English the national language, he said: \"While
the intent may not be there, I really believe this amendment is
racist.\"

Questions crowd upon one another. Was his opaque idea \-- well, perhaps
it is not opaque to liberals \-- of unintentional racism merely a bow to
Senate rules against personal slurs? What \"race\" does Reid think is
being victimized? Are Spanish speakers members of a single race?
Evidently Reid thinks something like that, because his next sentence
was: \"I think it is directed basically to people who speak Spanish.\"
Indeed, it is, but what has that to do with racism?

Declaring English the national language is a mere gesture. But by ending
bilingual ballots, American law would perform its expressive function of
buttressing, by codifying and vivifying, certain national assumptions
and aspirations. Among those is this: The idea of citizenship becomes
absurd when sundered from the ability to understand the nation\'s civic
conversation.

What makes Americans generally welcoming of immigrants, and what makes
immigrants generally assimilable, is that this is a creedal nation, one
dedicated to certain propositions, not one whose origins and identity
are bound up with ethnicity. But if you are to be welcomed to the
enjoyment of American liberty, then America has a few expectations of
you. One is that you can read the nation\'s founding documents and laws
and can comprehend the political discourse that precedes the casting of
ballots.

Is this unreasonable? Of course not.

georgewill@washpost.com