The ELPAC Report July 2003

What Is It With The Republicans?

The Bush Administration and the Republicans who control Congress have repeatedly failed to protect English as our official and common language. The Bush Administration has refused to revoke the Clinton-era Executive Order 13166, which mandates multi-lingualism in federal and state government programs. Congress won't schedule hearings or debates on popular legislation to declare English the official government language. 

Some see "pandering" at work here. In private sessions, the Bush White House's domestic advisors admit that they are avoiding all English-language issues in the hope of not antagonizing Hispanic voters. "We're in a political box," said one advisor, explaining the lack of activity on E.O. 13166. "We're not pushing the new rules," another told a Congressional inquiry. But it is not inaction which characterizes this latest push, but specific and sweeping action. In 2002, for example, the Bush White House political office and the national Republican party told GOP candidates that if they wanted to receive financial and political assistance, they had to commit funds for "outreach" to Hispanic voters, including Spanish-language media ads. The same requirements are apparently still in use for the 2004 election. Now many Republican members of Congress are taking Spanish-language classes in preparation for the upcoming elections.

The Washington Post newspaper reported in June on the overall Republican strategy of which this is a part. "The Bush team's plan to create a governing majority includes calculated efforts to lure swing voters and elements of the Democratic coalition." Those elements include "Latinos," though curiously, other language-minority groups with equivalent "Republican values" such as several of the conservative Asian-American constituencies were not mentioned.

Perhaps the Texas-based Bush team doesn't recognize those language groups as important to their plans, or perhaps it's the sheer numbers of potential Hispanic voters who attract the planners' attention. 

Yet the possibility of Hispanics voting Republican in large numbers remains a faint hope. As we showed in our last issue, Republican efforts to court the Hispanic vote in November 2002 failed miserably. Despite the White House's guidance, in most elections, the Hispanic vote was neither significant to the outcome nor larger than in prior years. 

It is clear from these political moves that there will be no public leadership from the White House or Congressional leadership to protect English. In the past, some of the most active and brave leadership on English-language issues came from conservative Republicans. Today those conservatives are paralyzed by a powerful political machine which believes its future depends on pandering to the myth of the Hispanic vote. 

Nevertheless, this vacuum of leadership on an issue critical to the future of our country has brought an interesting development. Since the traditional conservatives are not protecting English, new leaders have emerged. Cong. Peter King, a moderate Republican from Long Island, New York, has taken over the primary sponsorship of "official English" legislation, along with a freshman Congressman, Steve King (no relation to Peter King), from Iowa. Similarly, Bush's re- election campaign is now led by Marc Racicot, who, as Governor of Montana, not only signed legislation making English the official language of that state, but issued a special and lengthy proclamation about the importance of English as our common and official language. 

So there may be a silver lining in this pandering cloud. If conservative Republicans wake up from their delusions about sacrificing English for short-term political gain, perhaps a coalition with these new moderate leaders will finally energize action to protect English.