Mi Casa, Sue Casa
Nancy Pelosi tries to force the Salvation Army to hire people who can't speak English.

Monday, November 19, 2007 12:01 a.m.

It's been less than a week since New York's Sen. Hillary Clinton and Gov. Eliot Spitzer had to climb down from their support of driver's licenses for illegal aliens. Now House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has moved to kill an amendment that would protect employers from federal lawsuits for requiring their workers to speak English. Among the employers targeted by such lawsuits: the Salvation Army.


Sen. Lamar Alexander, a moderate Republican from Tennessee, is dumbstruck that legislation he views as simple common sense would be blocked. He noted that the full Senate passed his amendment to shield the Salvation Army by 75-19 last month, and the House followed suit with a 218-186 vote just this month. "I cannot imagine that the framers of the 1964 Civil Rights Act intended to say that it's discrimination for a shoe shop owner to say to his or her employee, 'I want you to be able to speak America's common language on the job,' " he told the Senate last Thursday.

But that's exactly what the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is trying to do. In March the EEOC sued the Salvation Army because its thrift store in Framingham, Mass., required its employees to speak English on the job. The requirement was clearly posted and employees were given a year to learn the language. The EEOC claimed the store had fired two Hispanic employees for continuing to speak Spanish on the job. It said that the firings violated the law because the English-only policy was not "relevant" to job performance or safety.


"If it is not relevant, it is discriminatory, it is gratuitous, it is a subterfuge to discriminate against people based on national origin," says Rep. Charles Gonzalez of Texas, one of several Hispanic Democrats in the House who threatened to block Ms. Pelosi's attempts to curtail the Alternative Minimum Tax unless she killed the Alexander amendment.


The confrontation on the night of Nov. 8 was ugly. Members of the Hispanic Caucus initially voted against the rule allowing debate on a tax bill that included the AMT "patch," which for a year would protect some 23 million Americans from being kicked into a higher income tax bracket.

Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, a moderate from Maryland, was beside himself. Congressional Quarterly reports that he jabbed his finger on the House floor at Joe Baca, the California Democrat who chairs the Hispanic Caucus, and yelled, "How dare you destroy this party? This will be the worst loss in 10 years."

Mr. Baca was having none of it. "You see this on the [voting] board?," he yelled back. "This is against me. This is against me personally." Luckily for Democrats, C-Span's microphones did not pick up the exchange. But it was audible to reporters in the press gallery. They also heard Rep. Luis Gutierrez of Illinois say that English-only efforts were symbolic of "bigotry and prejudice" against those who speak other languages.

After testy negotiations, the Hispanic Caucus finally agreed to let the tax bill proceed after extracting a promise from Ms. Pelosi that the House will not vote on the bill funding the Justice and Commerce Departments unless the English-only protection language is dropped. "There ain't going to be a bill" with the Alexander language, Mr. Baca has told reporters.

Sen. Alexander says that if that's the case, "thousands of small businesses across America will have to show there is some special reason to justify requiring their employees to speak our country's common language on the job." He notes that the number of EEOC actions against English-only policies grew to some 200 last year from 32 a decade ago. In an attempt at compromise, he has offered watered-down language that would still allow the EEOC to file many actions, but he says House Democrats rejected it.


Mr. Alexander says his battle is about far more than what language is spoken on a shop floor. "The EEOC actions turn diversity, our greatest strength, against the interests of our common future as Americans," he told me.


The late Albert Shanker, head of the American Federation of Teachers, once pointed out that public schools were established in this country largely "to help mostly immigrant children learn the three R's and what it means to be an American, with the hope that they would go home and teach their parents the principles in the Constitution and the Declaration that unite us."

Mr. Alexander says that noble effort is in danger of being undermined: "We have spent the last 40 years in our country celebrating diversity at the expense of unity. One way to create that unity is to value, not devalue, our common language, English."

The battle over Mr. Alexander's amendment is about whether a consensus that used to unite liberals and conservatives in this country can continue to hold. If it can't, expect the issue to become a flashpoint in the 2008 elections. Republicans have their political problems with Hispanics over some of their approaches to illegal immigration, but they may be nothing compared to the problems Democrats have if they continue to cave in to their anti-assimilation extremists.

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Liberals are people that will believe anything twice.

My wifes grandmother and mother emigrated here from Sicily as did my great grand-parents. One of the first things they did was learn how to speak English. Nowadays we have 2 or 3 generations of families who still cannot speak proper English or any English at all, for that matter. Whether its just lazyness or stupidity they have to learn English. If there is one thing I can't stand its trying to communicate with someone that can't speak English......at the 7-Eleven a block from my house. When I visit other countries whether its business or vacation I don't expect the people in that country to speak English. It's nice if they do but, I don't expect them to conform to me. I make do and do my best to conform to them because its their country.

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"Think for yourselves and let others enjoy the privilege to do so too" - Evelyn Beatrice Hall

"My wifes grandmother and mother emigrated here from Sicily as did my great grand-parents."

I just KNEW there was something I like about you Chris. ~lol~

My grandparents came from the "Boot" too.

Vi

__________________
Liberals are people that will believe anything twice.

It may be unbelievable, but I agree with Steny Hoyer and Mr. alexander. English should be a requirement for employment. In Mexico, it is and all governmental business is conducted in spanish. Illegal immigrants are arrested amd either sentenced to prison or deported. An eye for an eye.

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Life is good, the water is sweet. The ground keeps moving beneath my feet.

i don't think we need a law to require English but we definitely need to keep the law from telling us who to hire or not hire. just the fact that pelosivich would suggest this kind of thing tells you volumes about how much she gets out in the real world. she thinks the business owner should have to hire hermondo and pay him to sit and play with himself all day because no one can understand him?? lol, she's gone way overboard on this one. she better get that amnesty for illegals bill through before re-election time so she can get those illegal alien votes counted! otherwise, she's going to be replaced.






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"But even when you cease to be slaves, you are yet far removed from being placed on an equality with the white race."

- Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States of America, Hero to the servants of big government, Racist War Monger

Pelosivich? ~lol~ That's perfect!

Vi

__________________
Liberals are people that will believe anything twice.

Wow...it looks like everyone here agrees that Nancy is a supreme jackass!

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If you wind up with a boring, miserable life because you listened to your mom, your dad, your teacher, your priest or some guy on TV telling you how to do your shit, then YOU DESERVE IT.
~ Frank Zappa ~

Liberty means responsibility, that is why most men dread it.
~George Bernard Shaw~

She's a San Francisco liberal, so its to be expected. Hey, San Francisco has a trasvestite drag queen on the City Council and the Mayor, even though married, screws everything in sight. I guess to San Franciscans, Pelosi looks pretty normal. ~lol~

Vi

__________________
Liberals are people that will believe anything twice.

well, there goes my theory that she's going to be looking for a new job... lol, America needs to secede from the Republic of California!






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__________________
"But even when you cease to be slaves, you are yet far removed from being placed on an equality with the white race."

- Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States of America, Hero to the servants of big government, Racist War Monger

A lot of Ca. residents have seceded from Ca. and moved to Vegas, About a million I believe.

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Life is good, the water is sweet. The ground keeps moving beneath my feet.