Xavier Becerra: “Mr. Speaker, it is unfortunate at this late date in the year when we have not yet had one of the 13 appropriations bills…”

“Mr. Speaker, it is unfortunate at this late date in the year when we have not yet had one of the 13 appropriations bills that must be passed in order for this government to function go through the process and when we still have not been able to deal with all of the significant national legislation that is before us, to find ourselves debating a bill that never got an appropriate amount of time to be heard, were never given an opportunity to bring on those who are experts in the area of bilingual education to testify, and never, never gave the minority in the House of Representatives the opportunity to participate in the drafting of this legislation. This is a bill which affects Title 7 of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. The Elementary and Secondary Education Act in 4 months is going to go through a total reauthorization, a revamping. Why, when that is 4 months from now, are we plucking out only one of the titles in that most important of bills that deals with education at the Federal level? We could only guess why. But to do it at a time when we are only 8 weeks away from an election, to do it at a time when there was an election in California in June that dealt with, in part, this issue of bilingual education leads a lot of us to be suspicious. Mr. Speaker, why not have a full and fair opportunity to really air the issue of bilingual education?”