Douglas Alexander: “I say to my friend from Colorado, that is a preposterous question for what we are talking about and not really a…”

“I say to my friend from Colorado, that is a preposterous question for what we are talking about and not really a suitable question for a serious proposal. This is a simple proposal which declares that English is the national language of the United States and that the Government of the United States should do whatever it can to encourage that. It does not change any right that anyone has today. It also includes a strengthening of the citizenship test. Anyone who understands the founding documents knows that liberty is at the front of our unifying principles. Any citizen has a right to speak in Spanish. A Senator, of course, does as well. This has nothing to do with inhibiting anyone's rights. It just declares that, unlike Switzerland, unlike Canada, unlike Belgium, we have a common national language that is part of our identity. We do not want to be based on race. We do not want to be based on ancestry. We want to be unified by a few things--the unifying principles and our national common language. So the answer is, of course not.”