Click to enlarge photos.By D.A. King
Guest Columnist
Some bad news: The United States has no official language. More bad news: On Tuesday under the Gold Dome in Atlanta, a House Resolution that would allow citizens to vote in November on whether or not to amend the Georgia Constitution to make English the official language of state government failed to pass.
When you read that "things are changing in Georgia," remember this one.
Because it deals with amending the Constitution, pro-English Americans needed a two-thirds majority, or 120 votes, to allow HR 413 to move on to the Senate. The resolution fell 17 short of the minimum for passage.
The good news: Because a reconsideration vote was successful the next day, HR 413 will likely be voted on again.
It should be repeated, over and over: HR 413 does not amend the Georgia Constitution to make English the official language. It merely allows the Georgia voters to make that decision at the ballot box.
When people tell you that things are changing in Cobb County, remember this: Five state representatives from Cobb voted "no" on HR 413. When you are told that things are changing in the Grand Old Party, remember this: One of them, Judy Manning, is a Republican. A "new Georgia" indeed.
The fact that legislators voted to deny voters the opportunity to decide for themselves about English as a constitutionally official language says a lot about the state of affairs in Georgia and even more about what immigration - legal and illegal - is doing to our state.
Despite the fact that we currently have a meaningless law that is not enforced - but not a constitutional mandate - that makes English the official Georgia language, the Associated Press reports that the written test to obtain a Georgia driver's license is given in 16 languages. A number that is growing nearly every year.
Laws have been known to be ignored. Immigration and employment laws, for example.
Amazingly, for now, the 104-page manual to study for the test is only offered in English.
If you are wondering how someone who needs to take the driver's license test in Russian, Spanish, Arabic or Laotian can study the rules of the Georgia road - in what is for them a foreign language (English), you are in a very large group. If you are thinking that it may represent a public safety issue to grant a driver's license to someone whop can't read the signs (in English) while whizzing past them on I-285, well … me, too.
Be ready for the name-calling if you lack the political correctness to remain silent on these concerns. Or what the cost will be of the sure-to-come demands that the manual be printed in multiple languages.
Besides repeating the stand-by accusations of being (yawn) "nativist" and "xenophobic," the fierce resistance to the resolution in committee meetings at the Capitol involved angry charges that the English-for-government legislation is clearly - and I can not make stuff like this up - "ill-conceived," "anti-immigrant," "anti-Latino," "anti-refugee" and a "ploy" to get voters to the polls in November.
Apparently, voters going to the polls is a bad thing?
My two personal favorite talking points on why the resolution should not pass are that amending the Constitution to make English the official language of Georgia would be "divisive" (from Jerry Gonzalez of the Georgia Association of Latino Elected Officials) and "mean-spirited" (from an editorial writer for the Atlanta newspaper).
The controversy also says a lot about the agenda of the business community.
The most verbal and obvious lobbying against HR 413 is coming from the usual suspects - the open-borders anti-English crazies in the ethno-centric activist groups who advocate for illegal aliens. But according to many state reps with whom I have talked, the most effective non-stop pressure to vote "no" is coming from the business lobby.
Knowing English to drive in Georgia is one too many hoops to jump through for their imported foreign workers, it seems.
Had anyone proposed such a resolution 20 years ago, not many doubt that it would have flown unimpeded through the legislature - right after puzzled legislators asked with incredulous curiosity why anyone would regard it as necessary.
Sadly, in 21st century Georgia, House Resolution HR 413 is now necessary. We should all take a few minutes from our day to do what we can to encourage its passage. Si?
D.A. King is president of the Dustin Inman Society, a Cobb-based non-profit coalition which advocates for English as the national official language. On the Web: www.TheDustinInmanSociety.org
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Posted Comments
D.A. does it again. Why are we hearing about the Cobb county reps votes on English from him instead of the news? I will be calling my rep today to make it clear that I want to have English in the constitution. I hope I don't have top press 1 to call her. Thank you D.A.!
If you don't want Johnson Ferry to begin to resemble South Cobb Drive,...or Paces Ferry in Vinings to take on the Windy Hill bario distinction-- people of Georgia better wake up, get involved & demand our elected officials to grow some backbone!(come to Smyrna & see for yourself what happens when elected officials don't protect the Americans that elected them!)
I am tired of all the help various people and groups are giving to the "illegals". If these "illegals" would obey the law and make proper application to come to the US then fine with me, but they don't so they need to be rounded up and deported. Then maybe some of their advocates could spend their time trying to help legal citizens rather than catering to "illegals".
These traitors are not our representatives. I don't know what country they are actually representing but certainly not the CITZENS of Georgia. They seem to forget that the votes to put them in office come from the CITZENS, not the corporate lobby or Chamber of Commerce.
It was a stupid amendment and our elected officials did the right thing in voting against it.
D.A., we simply dont have anyone with the backbone to do the logical thing. Our elected officials are more worried about making someone mad and losing votes than they are about representing the majority of law abiding citizens and hearing their voices.
16 languages!? WHAT?! How many people are driving around Atlanta who cannot speak or read English? I am outraged to learn that we are giving our driver's license test in other languages. A lot of state officials should be doing a lot of back peddling very soon. What is next...the Spanish langauge as an oficial language in Georgia? Why not just say we will speak any langauge you want, as long as you don't call us names? Immigration is killing our nation and it is time we said so. I wish I could vote for D.A. - he makes more sense than anyone I see running for office.