Willie R. Tubbs, FISM News
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Ohio Republican Sen. JD Vance has become the latest in a long list of American politicians to present a bill to make English the official language of the United States.
On Thursday, Vance introduced the English Language Unity Act, a bill similar to one that had previously been championed by Iowa Republican Sen. Steve King in 2017.
“This commonsense legislation recognizes an inherent truth: English is the language of this country. That is why the overwhelming majority of the American people support this proposal,” Vance said in a statement. “The English language has been a cornerstone of American culture for over 250 years. It is far past time for Congress to codify its place into law, which is exactly what this bill does.”
It is unlikely that Vance’s bill progresses much further than it already has. In 2017, King’s act never made it past the introduction phase.
And, unlike most matters currently debated in Washington, D.C., it isn’t entirely fair to point to the dynamics of who controls the chambers of Congress or the White House as a reason for the bill’s coming stagnation.
Moves to create a national language are as old as the nation, but none have ever enjoyed much support on Capitol Hill.
Indeed, in 1780, nine years before the United States elected him the nation’s first vice president and when the nation was operating as a confederation of states and not yet a republic, John Adams presented a bill to the U.S. Congress seeking to make English the official language of the new nation.
The measure was defeated, with most dissenters pointing to the establishment of a national language as a potential imposition on personal liberty and to the fact that English was already being used as the de facto language.
In short, since Americans had organically adopted a shared language, the founding fathers saw no practical reason to declare one.
The Adams bill, doomed though it was, set the precedent that has prevailed ever since. Numerous attempts have been made over the years to officially codify English as the national language, but none has ever gained much traction.
Vance, though, believes that Americans will support the measure this time.
He has cited a May 2022 Rasmussen poll in which 78% of respondents indicated they supported English becoming the official language of the nation as well as the fact that 31 states have declared English as their official language.
If passed in its current form, Vance’s bill would require English to be used for “all laws, public proceedings, regulations, publications, orders, actions, programs, and policies.”
The senator says the bill would not affect “the teaching of languages, requirements under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, communication necessary for national security, international relations, trade, tourism or commerce, communication relating to public health and safety, the Census, actions that protect the rights of victims of crimes or criminal defendants or terms of art or phrases from languages other than English.”