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Georgia weighs constitutional amendment making English official language
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Josh McKoon
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Nick Bowman
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Updated:
Jan. 29, 2018, 11:09 p.m.
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<div class="gmail-rich-text"><div class="gmail-rich-text"><p>Should English be the constitutionally enshrined official language of Georgia?</p><p>Sen. Josh McKoon, R-Columbus, has proposed a bill doing just that. <a href="http://www.legis.ga.gov/legislation/en-US/Display/20172018/SR/587">Senate Resolution 587</a>
would make English the official first language of Georgia and prohibit
the state from using non-English communication in all but nine
situations laid out in the bill.</p><p>The bill, which stalled in the
2016 General Assembly session when McKoon first introduced it, cleared
the Senate Rules Committee on Wednesday with a non-unanimous
recommendation that it be approved by the Senate.</p><p>His proposal has
attracted heated criticism from Democrats and advocates for Latinos and
other minorities in Georgia, but McKoon argues that an English-only
policy promotes learning of the unofficial but natural language in the
United States.</p><div class="gmail-in-text-ad">
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<p>“Your non-native English-speaking population tends to adopt English
at a more rapid rate, and I don’t think there’s any debate on this
question: Conversance in English is really the key to economic mobility
and prosperity in our country and in our state,” McKoon said.</p><p>
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<img alt="Butch Miller" src="https://anvil-prod-gainesvilletimes.s3.amazonaws.com/media/images/2018/01/30/images/Butch_Miller.width-500.jpg" width="390" height="480">
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Butch Miller
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Sen. Butch Miller, R-Gainesville, said on Monday that while
polls show popular support for an “official English” policy, “there are
certain issues that require multiple languages — it might be health
care, public safety, judicial proceedings, instructional services.”<p></p><p>However, Miller noted that “you can’t deny the economic, social, the overall benefit of speaking English.”</p><p>And McKoon’s bill is making news just after the Hall County Elections Board <a href="https://www.gainesvilletimes.com/news/elections-board-scraps-plans-provide-ballots-spanish/">rescinded a 2017 vote</a>
aiming to establish Spanish-language ballots in the county. Proponents
of bilingual ballots in Hall are pointing to Gwinnett County and saying <a href="https://www.gainesvilletimes.com/news/hall-may-not-have-choice-bilingual-ballots/">it’s only a matter of time</a> before the federal government will force the county to adopt Spanish-language ballots.</p><p>The
issue has attracted a great deal of local attention, and two members of
the Elections Board, Republican Ken Cochran and Democrat Michelle
Sanchez Jones, will study the costs of adopting bilingual ballots, which
could be more than <a href="https://www.gainesvilletimes.com/news/bilingual-ballots-could-be-six-figure-proposition-county/">$100,000 during busy presidential election cycles</a>.</p><p>And
this month, Douglas Aiken, an avid watcher of local government and its
budgets, approached the Hall County Board of Commissioners to encourage
it to adopt a local official English ordinance.</p><div class="gmail-in-text-ad">
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<p>“I would like to suggest that Hall County shall recognize and
designate the English language to be the official, legal language to be
utilized on all legal documents, signage and all other documents unless
prohibited by law,” Aiken told the commission on Jan. 22, saying the
county needed to get a handle on its policy before the issue would “jump
up and bite you in the rear end.”</p><p>At the state level, the law is
already on the books, but McKoon’s bill would make the law a
constitutional amendment given what he says has been lax enforcement
from state agencies — especially the Georgia Department of Driver
Services.</p><p>“It reads a lot more like an urging resolution than it
really does something with the force of law,” McKoon said of the
existing law on Monday. “You’ve had state agencies — and the driver’s
license issue is probably the best example — just ignore the statute.”</p><p>The
original official English law was passed in 1996. The constitutional
amendment explicitly prohibits the driver’s license exam from being
given in any language other than English. </p><p>McKoon told The Times that his bill is driven by two motives: fiscal conservatism and a desire to benefit the entire community.</p><p>He
said taxpayer dollars shouldn’t be spent “subsidizing the translation
of official documents or paying for translators,” but also noted that
encouraging new immigrants and residents to learn English improves their
economic outcomes.</p><div class="gmail-in-text-ad">
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<p>However, opponents of the bill say it’s bad for business and Georgians.</p><p>“The
proposed bill is un-American and would negatively impact Georgia’s
economy, wipe out opportunities for our state to attract potential
economic powerhouses and betray the strong bonds that we have with our
family members and neighbors from around the world who now call Georgia
home,” said Sean Young, legal director for the American Civil Liberties
Union of Georgia, on Monday.</p><p>Young said it sends a message to
people that Georgia is not a friendly place for immigrants and called it
one of the legislature’s “Adios Amazon” bills.</p><p>Atlanta is one of
20 cities now vying to be the location of Amazon’s second headquarters.
Lawmakers and activists alike have said social issue legislation and
similar bills will deter Amazon from selecting Georgia no matter how
strong its economic incentives for the internet retail giant.</p><p>“Jeff
Bezos, CEO of Amazon, is of Cuban descent and recently gave $33 million
for scholarships for Dreamers,” said Jerry Gonzalez, head of the
Georgia Association of Latino Elected Officials. “In that announcement,
Bezos mentioned his father arrived in this country at 16 years of age
and spoke no English. Passing an English-only constitutional amendment
would likely send a message to Amazon and to the world that Georgia is
an unwelcoming state.”</p><p>McKoon dismissed these arguments, saying
there’s “no evidence that businesses make these decisions based on
anything other than the available workforce, the available
infrastructure, the tax and regulatory policies currently in place, and
how fat of an economic incentive check the state is willing to write
them.”</p><p>The bill has a high bar to clear before the law could be
made part of the state’s guiding document. Constitutional amendments
require supermajority support in both the Georgia House and Senate, the
governor’s signature and a victory in a statewide popular vote before
they can be added.</p><p>Other senators that sponsored the bill include Sen. Steve Gooch, R-Dahlonega, and Sen. David Shafer, R-Duluth.</p><p>“The nice thing about a constitutional amendment is if I’m wrong about all of that, then the voters get the final say in Nov</p></div></div></div></div></div></div></div>
<br>-- <br><div class="gmail_signature" data-smartmail="gmail_signature">=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+<br><br> Harold F. Schiffman<br><br>Professor Emeritus of <br> Dravidian Linguistics and Culture <br>Dept. of South Asia Studies <br>University of Pennsylvania<br>Philadelphia, PA 19104-6305<br><br>Phone: (215) 898-7475<br>Fax: (215) 573-2138 <br><br>Email: <a href="mailto:haroldfs@gmail.com" target="_blank">haroldfs@gmail.com</a><br><a href="http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~haroldfs/" target="_blank">http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~haroldfs/</a> <br><br>-------------------------------------------------</div>
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