Scott Garrett: “I rise today in my fullest support for the King amendment, and also his work to make sure that all political barriers to…”

“I rise today in my fullest support for the King amendment, and also his work to make sure that all political barriers to participation are removed. But we are clear that foreign language ballots do no such thing. There are three reasons why I support the King amendment. First, section 312 of the current code says anyone coming into this country as a naturalized citizen must be able to be proficient in reading, writing and understanding the English language. So there should be no basis for requiring the ballots to be in another language. In fact, we are ignoring the current law in providing a disincentive for new citizens to assimilate into this country without this amendment. Secondly, as already pointed out, this is in fact yet another unfunded mandate on the States. Talk to your county commissioners and they will tell you how much this costs them. And I should also point out that this amendment does absolutely nothing, nothing to require that all ballots be in English. We simply say under this amendment that the States and localities will decide how to implement it themselves. Third, this bill currently is an arbitrary and capricious attack against individuals by insulting the voters by simply implying that with a foreign language surname that they cannot understand the language. I support the amendment.”