Friday Filibuster

Yes, please note the irony in the title. This post is going to be both politcal and more than just a quick read.

A small item made news here yesterday about a bill proposed by Congressman Dean Heller from Nevada’s First Congressional district. Don’t get me wrong, it will play well in his district that covers Reno, rural Nevada and a very small piece of Clark County. The bill is an amendment to the Voting Rights Act to remove the requirement that bilingual ballots be provided if 5 percent of the voting-age citizens are deemed limited in their English-speaking skills, as determined by the US Census.

I will admit that I have mixed feelings on this bill. To be able to vote, you need to be a US citizen. To be a US citizen, you need to pass a basic English proficiency exam. So why do we go through the taxpayer expense of printing dual-language ballots? How much English do you have to understand to read what office the candidate is running for and the candidates’ names? The complexity comes in when reading and understanding ballot initiatives. This are often very wordy and tough to follow, even for those with a firm grasp on English. It makes sense that they may need to be translated to be adequately understood.

The immigration debate in this country hasn’t changed in 200 years. It started with the first waves of non-WASP immigrants. First, it was the massive amounts of Irish immigration. The next waves were from Italy and other, poorer and mostly Roman Catholic areas of Southern Europe. Many people today don’t realize there was a serious effort to bar Catholics from both citizenship and the right to vote in the 19th century. During the California Gold Rush and construction of the transcontinental railroad, there were massive amounts of Chinese immigration. If you were to walk through the ethnic neighborhoods of any major city (New York, Boston, Chicago, San Francisco) during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the languages of the “old country” would have dominated. Children learned to speak English, and served as translators for their parents who had a limited grasp of the language.

The general debate hasn’t changed. The only wrinkle is that there are a substantial number of people entering the country outside of the established processes. We need to protect our borders. We need to maintain our national security.

However, the bill as proposed by Rep. Heller does nothing to secure our borders. It just makes it harder for those citizens that are still gaining confidence in English to understand ballot questions and fully participate in every voting-age citizen's civic duty – take an active interest in public affairs and vote.

We need to call this bill what it really is - an election year stunt to rekindle debate on a “wedge” issue without actually solving things. Chances are Rep. Heller was only asked to propose this bill because it will play well in Reno, Pahrump, Ely and the rest of rural Nevada.

This country has real problems that need to be solved. People are losing their homes. Our military is under-funded and stretched thin in two theaters, compromising their effectiveness. Our infrastructure is old and at greater risk of failing.

Introducing this bill is a bigger waste of taxpayer money than printing bilingual ballots. I only hope that Jill Derby can use this argument against Congressman Heller. It's obvious to me that he is not independent and simply a tool for Republican leadership.