This story is fucking hysterical because:
(a) The bleeding heart liberals that are complaining are the ones that obviously don't even read the bills that they sign into law
(b) It's somehow perceived as a problem that people who come to this country should be asked to assimilate enough to speak the fucking native language
(c) The ACLU doesn't realize that "punishing people who don't speak English" does in fact promote the learning of english. (one would presume that, unless he wants to debate that the entire psychological concept of "negative reinforcement" is bunk)
(d) The change in question was actually proferred by a Democrat
(e) Said Democrat's epic understatement “I just told the members that the amendment clarifies the way in which documents are produced."
(f) All of the Above
The moronic part of the story is how politicians love to slip completely unrelated amendments into bills. Why on earth should a bill addressing the number of members that cities can appoint to boards of parks and recreation have the side effect of setting English as the official language, or enabling a lottery, or any number of unrelated things that try to get run through this way?
May I ask what the official language was before that?
German?
Surprisingly, the answer is "none". Unlike most every other civilized country, the United States -- despite it's clear adoption of "English" as its national language, has no OFFICIAL language.
Proponents of an official language cite the various benefits -- not needing to have official documents in as many as fifteen or twenty different languages, the reinforcing effect it would have on immigrants to get them to learn the language of their neighbors and co-workers, so they can become a full part of society instead of balkanizing themselves by creating a language barrier.
Opponents say it will deprive people of their access to government services, blah blah blah. :-)
It's easy to see which side I come down on. hehe
Wade,
Amendments like that happen for a lot of reasons, the usual one being that you don't trust the opposition in your deal-making.
For example, you want the Widget Law to be passed, and you don't have the votes. Your opposition wants the Sprocket Law passed, but HE doesn't have the votes.
It could be that neither of you trusts that if you vote for the other guy's law, that he will actually do what he told you he would do, so you arrange an amendment so that you're voting for his thing at the same time as he's voting for your thing.
Another reason is to give politicians the ability to gracefully back away from positions. For instance, Politician A may know that the Widget Law is unpopular in their district, but that it's the right thing to do. By getting an amendment extremely popular to his constituency attached to it, he can vote his conscience and have the ability to say "This amendment was too important to let it not be voted for."
Oh, I'm pretty comfortable in the reasons WHY it's done, I'm just saying it's a chickenshit way of operating that usually boils down to, as you said, "I want this to become law but know it would never pass if people voted on it by itself," or "I'm doing this for shady reasons and want plausible deniability on voting for it."
So, do you think any politician will lose the next election because they don't know what they are voting for? Or because they are too chickens*** to make a stand on the issue? Come on... either you don't want to punish immigrants who haven't learned the language, or you want come right out and say it: "We are Americans and we speak English."