Arizona candidate off ballot over English skills

Arizona candidate off ballot over English skills

YUMA -- A judge ruled that a city council candidate in Arizona must be removed from the ballot due to lack of English proficiency.

The ruling on Wednesday came after the San Luis City Council approved a motion Jan. 13 asking for verification that Alejandrina Cabrera met the requirement of a state law that any person holding office in the state, a county or city must speak, write and read English.

San Luis Mayor Juan Carlos Escamilla filed a lawsuit in December asking the court to determine if Cabrera's English skills were sufficient to qualify her to seek the four-year council seat in the city's primary election.

Cabrera, who last year launched two unsuccessful attempts to recall Escamilla as mayor, was one of 10 candidates to file petitions to run for the council.

The Yuma Sun reported the removal of Cabrera from the ballot also stemmed from a Dec. 14 complaint made by former mayor Guillermina Fuentes that Cabrera isn't fluent in English.

Fuentes claimed she has acted as an interpreter for Cabrera.

Yuma County Superior Judge John Nelson ordered Cabrera's name stricken from the March ballot after a court hearing that ended Wednesday night.

Nelson's ruling was based on tests administered by a sociolinguistics expert, as well as her inability to respond to questions posed to her in English at Wednesday's hearing, the newspaper said.

Cabrera's lawyers, John Minore and John Garcia, said they're considering filing an appeal. They argued that state law doesn't set specific standards of fluency that candidates must meet.

Sociolinguistics expert William Eggington presented the court with results of three different tests he administered to Cabrera, who graduated from Kofa High School in Yuma. One measured her English-speaking skill, another was to determine if she reads the language, and the third was to assess her level of English comprehension.

Eggington's report said Cabrera's English skills don't meet the level of language proficiency needed to serve on the council.

Minore said the action against his client was politically motivated because of her efforts to recall Escamilla.

Cabrera began circulating petitions to recall the mayor in April after the council hiked utility rates and approved the layoffs of 12 city employees as part of spending cuts to balance the budget.

 

Can we apply this standard everywhere? Because I bet there are a lot of U.S.-born Caucasian candidates with English as a native language who would fail the proficiency tests.

 

Here's another story on it from the NYT.

I couldn't help but notice that the one making the complaint isn't that well versed either.

Wow.

 

Aw, yeah.

 

Interesting. I wonder if anyone has challenged this law.

While I assume it's constitutional, I would expect some groups to argue that it violates equal protection.

 

Good. This is an English speaking country. Wanna be a part of it, learn the fucking language. Wanna run for office, learn the fucking language or sit home and STFU.

 

Can't see a thing wrong with not being allowed to serve a public that you can't communicate with. Although, that'd trim off about 2/3 of Canadian politicians...

Not seeing a downside.

 

^The 14th Amendment's Equal Protection Clause says that the government has to treat different groups equally unless it has a good enough reason not to.

In the case of most stuff, there only has to be a "rational basis" for the unequal treatment. That's a really easy standard to meet, particularly since courts can simply read into a law any rational basis -- not even something the government said before enacting the law, or while the law was being challenged in the courts.

The only time I can think of recently when the government has lost on this test is when people ruled against gay marriage and when it struck down anti-sodomy laws. The government in those cases couldn't articulate why there should be the distinctions there.

Here, there are plenty of rational reasons for a must-speak-English law, based in efficiency of communication with citizens, the expense of translations, the mayor's position as a role model for the community or whatever.

But also arguably this law is racially discriminatory -- clearly when it was passed it was not meant to prevent people who spoke only Norweigan from taking office.

Things involving race require much more justification before unequal treatment, and it's possible, if not probable, if someone successfully made the argument that it should be looked at through that lens that it would be struck down.

 

Norwegian is not a race.

 

I'm trying to figure out in which fucking alternate reality I'd be inclined to move to the United States and seek election to a city council without knowing the native language...

 

FTFY

 

Yes, Caucasian and...other races too.

 

Yeah, but they're who the test is probably aimed at. It's much less likely to be applied in places where the illiterate people happen to be white.

 

And you say that based on what?

 

Because the best way to show how un-racist you are these days is to be racist towards white people.

 

Damn straight! We whiteys have it coming to us....bastards.

 

I know I'm really damned oppressive, what with my rarely interacting with anyone or giving a shit about them either way.

 

Apply the test. I see no problem here.

 

Finally, a story where common sense prevails.

Seems like there's been a lack of those lately.

 

So in a city where well over half the population speaks Spanish, where the last two mayors spoke Spanish and most of the county council speaks Spanish, people think her inability to speak ENGLISH would keep her from representing her constituants?!?!

 

The problem there would be the population's effort to assimilate, not the language skills of elected officials.

 

Being bilingual would be a huge plus, but how can you represent somebody in the government if you can't also speak the language that government conducts business in?

 

So I got the city and county confused. The county is majority Spanish speaking. The city in question San Luis is over 90% Spanish speaking. Spanish is the working language of the city government. In what way will not speaking English impact her ability to do her job as a city councilwoman? And if her constituents don't. Think it is a problem and want to elect her in spite of any possible impacts who are we to tell them no?

And before you ask I don't support age minimums either.

 

Cities don't exist in a vacuum. How effective can you really be in running a city if you can't communicate with people in the county, state and federal governments?

 

How much interaction does a lone city councilwoman from a fly speck village have with the State and Federal government? In Seattle individual council.people cannot lobby Olympia, but the Council as a whole develops and votes on the Cities Legislative Agenda.

And again even if there is some impact, isn't it up to the voters to decide viz a viz other candidates who would best represent them?

 

It's the other half I was worried about.
We've got politicians at every level in Toronto, from every possible ethnicity. They speak dozens of languages, but all of'em speak english.

 

But do anything of them speak Vulcan, Klingon, or Romulan?

Then they cannot represent most Trekkies.....

 

They did.

Through that motion approved by their city council.

 

This is how it starts--the constant relaxing of standards. First you have gay "marriages". Then you allow a beaner local official. Before you know it you have a foreigner elected President.

 

You guys were all hot and ready for the idea when it was Schwarzenegger.