Groups lobby against English-only driver's license test

By Ernie Suggs

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Now that a controversial bill designed to prevent anyone from taking the Georgia driver’s license test in any language other than English has moved out of the Senate, opponents rallied at the Capitol on Wednesday to prevent it from becoming a law.

Calling the bill anti-immigration, racist and xenophobic, as well as an economic development killer, opponents are calling on the Georgia House to block the bill.

“This demonstrates the strong growing opposition to this bad public policy bill,” said Jerry Gonzalez, executive director for the Georgia Association of Latino Elected Officials. “This bill goes after legal immigrants for not being proficient in English.”

Currently, a Georgia driver’s license test can be administered in one of 13 different languages. SB 67, pushed by Sen. Jack Murphy of Cumming, would limit those languages to just English. Murphy, chairman of the Public Safety Committee, said English-only is a public safety issue. He said he doesn’t want people who can’t read not being able to understand road signs.

Which is why opponents of the bill say it is xenophobic. Murphy admits that under his bill, natural-born Americans, even if they can’t read, are exempt from its restrictions. Now, anyone who can’t read is given an oral exam.

Murphy, who could not be reached Wednesday, has also said that Georgia would be one of several states to implement an English-only law. That is not technically true. There are at least seven other states that demand English only for just commercial drivers, not regular drivers.

“He cannot play ignorance and say that this data doesn’t exist. It was presented to him in committee meetings,” Gonzalez said. “He is misleading the Senate and the public.”

So Georgia would be the only state with such a law, and it would affect only permanent residents. Conversely, there are six states -- including New York, Kentucky and Massachusetts -- that offer the test in at least 17 languages. California leads the nation with 32 language offerings.

SB 67 is a holdover bill that passed both the Senate and the House during the last legislative session. But lawmakers failed to come up with an agreement on certain details, so the bill languished.

It was revised and passed by the Senate last week after a House amendment was stripped from it. The bill passed 39-11 in the Senate and now has to return to the House for passage. It has not been determined when the bill will make it to the Rules Committee.

Some hope it never sees the light of day.

"This is a hate-filled bill," said Aparna Bhattacharyya, executive director of Raksha, a nonprofit support organization for South Asians. "We have such poor transportation here, that anybody needs a car to survive. This bill prevents immigrants from being able to prosper and support themselves."