|
||||
Big Fight in Oklahoma? "It's like choosing between your children," ELPAC Executive Director Steve Workings said of the possibility facing voters in Oklahoma. The Democratic-dominated legislature, forced to cut a congressional seat when the 2000 Census shifted power to other Sunbelt States, wants to put two Republican congressmen into the same congressional district. One of the Congressmen at risk is Ernest Istook, Chairman of an influential Appropriations Subcommittee, and leader of recent efforts to defund Executive Order 13166. E.O. 13166 mandates multilingual federal government and punishes those who use English in providing services to applicants who don't speak English well. Istook has an excellent record of supporting English, and has recently taken on E.O. 13166 as a personal leadership issue. The other Congressman involved is J.C. Watts, Jr., a rapidly-rising star of the Republican congressional leadership. Watts, a former star football player in Oklahoma, is the only African-American Republican, and one of the few African-American Members of Congress to regularly support English. Though the Republican Governor has vowed to veto any redistricting plan which will pit two incumbents against each other, the courts will likely have the last word. A May trial is scheduled on a lawsuit challenging the Democratic redistricting plan. Final word on whether the courts will permit Democrats to sabotage these pro-English veterans isn't likely until July. |
||||
The
ELPAC Report 