[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 10 (Thursday, January 25, 1996)]
[House]
[Pages H867-H868]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




    VOTING BALLOTS PRINTED IN FOREIGN LANGUAGES, ANOTHER EXAMPLE OF 
                           GOVERNMENT EXCESS

  The Speaker pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Wisconsin [Mr. Roth] is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. ROTH. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to call attention to another 
example of Government excess. In the spirit of so-called 
multiculturalism, the Federal Government has mandated since 1965 that 
voting ballots and materials be printed in dozens of languages other 
than English. Today there are some 375 voting districts across this 
country that are required to print ballots in foreign languages.
  In a classic example of an unfunded mandate gone amok, politicians in 
Washington are forcing States and localities to provide multilingual 
ballots without providing the funds to implement the ballots. This Don 
Quixote mandate, the legislation that has caused this mandate is the 
voting Rights Act of 1965. Under the law, countries must provide 
multilingual voting information and ballots in the language of any 
minority groups with more than 10,000 eligible voters in that county.
  In the real world, these services should not be needed at all. Voting 
rights are extended to citizens of this country, and one needs to 
demonstrate some fluency in English to become a U.S. citizen, so why 
all of these ballots. In other languages other than English? In 
practice, this requirement for citizenship has been unenforced, but 
that does not change the facts. By law, English is the requirement for 
citizenship in this country. We should not be providing Government 
services, in direct contradiction with the spirit, if not the letter, 
of the law's requirement.
  Morevoer, these services are expensive, as well as unnecessary. It 
might surprise supporters of multilingual ballots to know that very few 
people actually request such special treatment. By and large 
multilingual ballots are rarely requested, and even less often used, 
even when they are provided. That is 

[[Page H868]]
what makes these costs and their cost to the local taxpayers all the 
more shocking.
  Election officials in Alameda County, CA, told me recently that they 
spent almost $100,000 to produce ballots in Spanish and Chinese for the 
entire country, yet only 900 were ultimately requested. You can do the 
math. The taxpayers of Alameda County spent over $100 for every 
multilingual ballot that was actually used in that June 1994 election. 
This appears to be a trend.
  The last election in Los Angeles saw ballots printed in six languages 
other than English. Among them were Spanish, Chinese, Japanese, 
Vietnamese, Tagalog, and Korean. It cost the city government over 
$125,000 to prepare the materials. Yet, and listen to this, only 927 
ballots were used. Los Angeles spent over $135 for each voter the city 
helped.
  Even small communities are not immune. Long Beach spent a relatively 
modest $1,026 preparing multilingual materials for its eligible voters 
when only 22 requests came in. The township spent over $280 per 
multilingual voter. As a frustrated election official told me recently, 
``This is a lot of money to help a few people.'' That official could 
not be more right.
  These ballots have other, more serious costs associated with them, 
too. Providing these special services creates the fiction that 
newcomers to this country can enjoy the full benefits of citizenship 
without the language of the land, which is English. How can a citizen 
cast an informed ballot in a foreign language when most candidates' 
platforms, stump speeches, and media coverage are in English? 
Exercising one's rights of citizenship involves more than just casting 
a vote. It means making a thoughtful decision regarding an issue or a 
candidate.
  Multilingual voting ballots give individuals the right to vote 
without granting the power to cast an informed vote. The logical extent 
of the argument behind the multilingual ballots is to provide these 
services in all the languages spoken in the country. After all, why 
should we privilege one linguistic minority over another? Should we not 
provide news reports and election coverage in all these languages, so 
these citizens have access to all the information they need to cast an 
informed vote? The simple and obvious answer is that we cannot. There 
are 327 languages spoken in the United States today. We cannot provide 
these services in all of these languages. What is more, we should not.

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