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FOR
IMMEDIATE RELEASE
July 25, 2006
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Contact:
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Rob Toonkel
rtoonkel@usenglish.org
(202) 833-0100
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Official English Legislation to be Considered by U.S.
House Subcommittee
H.R.
997 to be heard Wednesday; U.S. English, Inc. Chairman to
Testify
U.S.
English, Inc. Chairman Mauro E. Mujica has been invited to
testify Wednesday in front of the Education Reform
Subcommittee of the House Committee on Education and the
Workforce as the subcommittee considers H.R. 997, the English
Language Unity Act. This hearing marks the first time since
the 104th Congress that official English legislation has
received committee consideration.
The
English Language Unity Act is one of the most widely supported
bills in the 109th Congress. With 161 bi-partisan co-sponsors
covering 39 states, H.R. 997 has broad support from the
nation’s leaders. This support echoes public sentiment,
which found that 84 percent of Americans support making
English the official language of the
United States
, according to a June 2006 Rasmussen poll.
The
upcoming hearing is the latest in what has been a very busy
year for official language issues on Capitol Hill. In May, the
Senate passed an amendment that would make English the
national language of the
United States
by a vote of 62-35. In June, Chairman Mujica testified in
front of the Senate Judiciary Committee in opposition to the
bilingual ballot provisions of the Voting Rights Act. Most
recently, a House amendment to strike the multilingual ballot
mandates of the Voting Rights Act received the support of more
than 40 percent of the House.
In
addition to the testimony from Mujica, the committee will also
hear testimony from Paul McKinley, a State Senator from
Iowa
, the most recent state to pass official English legislation
on the state level. Currently, the hearing is scheduled for
12:30 p.m. on Wednesday in room 2175 of the
Rayburn
House
Office
Building
.
U.S.
English, Inc. is the nation's oldest and largest non-partisan
citizens' action group dedicated to preserving the unifying
role of the English language in the
United States
. Founded in 1983 by the late Sen. S.I. Hayakawa of
California, U.S. English, Inc. (www.usenglish.org)
now has more than 1.8 million members.
http://www.us-english.org/inc/news/preleases/viewRelease.asp?ID=209
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