[Congressional Bills 111th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H.R. 1588 Introduced in House (IH)]

111th CONGRESS
  1st Session
                                H. R. 1588

To ensure that an employer has the freedom to implement English in the 
                          workplace policies.


_______________________________________________________________________


                    IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                             March 18, 2009

    Mr. Price of Georgia (for himself, Mr. Akin, Mr. Bartlett, Mrs. 
   Biggert, Mr. Bilbray, Mr. Bilirakis, Mrs. Blackburn, Mr. Broun of 
  Georgia, Mr. Burton of Indiana, Mr. Deal of Georgia, Mr. Franks of 
Arizona, Mr. Gallegly, Mr. Gingrey of Georgia, Mr. Heller, Mr. Herger, 
Mr. Jones, Mr. Jordan of Ohio, Mr. Kline of Minnesota, Mr. Lamborn, Mr. 
Latta, Mr. Lucas, Mr. Marchant, Mr. McHenry, Mr. Miller of Florida, Mr. 
 Paul, Mr. Petri, Mr. Poe of Texas, Mr. Rehberg, Mr. Rohrabacher, Mr. 
    Shuster, Mr. Simpson, Mr. Smith of Nebraska, Mr. Sullivan, Mr. 
 Westmoreland, and Mr. Wolf) introduced the following bill; which was 
            referred to the Committee on Education and Labor

_______________________________________________________________________

                                 A BILL


 
To ensure that an employer has the freedom to implement English in the 
                          workplace policies.

    Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the 
United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

    This Act may be cited as the ``Common Sense English Act''.

SEC. 2. FINDINGS.

    Congress finds that--
            (1) throughout the history of the United States, English 
        has been the common thread to unify the American people much as 
        they are united under one flag;
            (2) Americans overwhelmingly believe that it is very 
        important for people living in the United States to speak and 
        understand English;
            (3) there is vast support among the American people to 
        allow a company the freedom to implement English in the 
        workplace policies; and
            (4) when a group of employees speaks a language other than 
        English in the workplace, it may cause misunderstandings, 
        create dangerous circumstances, and undermine morale.

SEC. 3. REQUIREMENT OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE PERMISSIBLE.

    Section 703 of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (42 U.S.C. 2000e-2) is 
amended by adding at the end the following:
    ``(o) Notwithstanding any other provision of this title, it shall 
not be an unlawful employment practice for an employer to require 
employees to speak English while engaged in work.''.
                                 <all>