YES: Promote safety on our roads and incentives to assimilate in Georgia.
By Phil Kent
Thirty-one states have made English their official language of government, but there is a dangerous loophole in Georgia’s law. Incredibly, the Department of Driver Services has been giving driver’s license tests in 14 languages ranging from Arabic and Spanish to Vietnamese.
To rectify this expensive problem of multilingualism and to promote highway safety, Rep. James Mills, R-Gainesville, introduced HB 72 to require that driver’s license tests be given exclusively in English. This legislation passed the House in 2009 and the Senate in 2010 on bipartisan votes. But time ran out to vote on the bill during the last hour of the 2010 session. That’s why HB 72 was re-introduced.
Unfortunately, though, the bill is now temporarily tabled because of an amendment by freshman Rep. B.J. Pak, R-Lilburn. It gutted the entire bill, just adding a requirement that the English language road sign test should include five additional signs that contain more than three English language words, such as “Use Caution, Hazardous Conditions Ahead.”
Due to last-minute confusion and naiveté among some Republican members, the Pak amendment passed by a vote of 88 to 78. However, House and Senate proponents should nevertheless try to resurrect and eventually pass the bill with its original intent restored — with or without the Pak amendment.
Mills emphasizes that “permanent residents who intend to make Georgia their home need to be able to answer in English the basic questions asked on this important test.” (A practice exam in English is available on the DDS website so test-takers can familiarize themselves with it.) HB 72 does not apply to those on temporary visas for the first 10 years they are in Georgia. The foreign driver’s licenses of international business executives, tourists and students will still be honored.
This bill, as some hysterical opponents claim, is not a “Kill-Kia bill”— a reference to the automobile plant built in Georgia by a South Korean company. International businesspeople are not affected. If anything, it is a “Drive Your Kia in Safety” bill, as it will make it safer for everyone to drive in Georgia.
Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration regulations require drivers engaged in interstate commerce to “read or speak the English language sufficiently to converse with the general public, to understand highway traffic signs and signals in the English language, to respond to official inquiries and to make entries on reports and records.” What is required of drivers engaged in interstate commerce to protect public safety should be required to protect the safety of Georgia drivers as well.
The Mills bill is not “unconstitutional” nor does it “go against the Civil Rights Act,” as some opponents claim. The federal government has never objected in court to the nine states that have this English driver’s license test law on the books, and the Civil Rights Act of 1964 doesn’t mention “language” at all. Some opponents also argue that non-English speakers only need to know a few “command words,” such as “slow” or “stop,” to interpret road signs in English. But contrary to this claim, there are at least 55 different types of instructional and cautionary road signs, including signs for school and construction zones. These include everything from “Pedestrian Crossing” to “Single Lane 1,000 Feet.”
Lawmakers should not be distracted by the Pak amendment. Restoring the original language and passing HB 72 will not only promote public safety, it will encourage more non-English speakers to learn the official language of our state. It will reinforce the incentives and benefits of assimilating if you want to become a permanent resident of Georgia.
Phil Kent of Atlanta is a member of the board of ProEnglish.
NO: Punitive measure will keep away foreign businesses.
By Helen Kim Ho
The English-only driver license bill is a slap in the face to any logical, fiscally sound, law-abiding Georgian.
The bill, introduced for a third year in a row, seeks to prohibit limited English proficient (LEP) immigrant citizens applying for a permanent driver license from taking the written exam in a language other than English. Note that the road sign test is offered in English-only. In contrast, the written exam is offered in 14 languages and covers topics such as hydroplaning, Georgia’s implied consent law, and the proper way to stop on a highway shoulder.
State Rep. James Mills, the bill’s sponsor, has claimed that the bill has nothing to do with immigrants and everything to do with public safety. Even though immigrant citizens must prove basic English proficiency by passing the road sign test, he claims these individuals threaten public safety because they may not be able to read temporary overhead signs and cause accidents on the road.
The public safety argument sounds logical until you realize there is an exception for illiterate applicants who cannot read or write at all. These applicants are read the questions aloud on the written exam and the road sign test.
In case you think this was an innocent oversight, an amendment to eliminate this illiterate loophole was proposed but summarily voted down on the House floor last week. Functional illiterates make up about 17 percent of our state, according to the National Center for Education Statistics, compared to roughly 5 percent of our LEP immigrant population. Just by the numbers, we should be more afraid of illiterate drivers.
This bill also breaks the law and will cost Georgians money. Our state is required to provide reasonable access for significant LEP populations or risk losing the federal funds that make our Department of Driver Services operational. That amounts to $1.2 billion from the federal government, which makes up the greatest share of the DOT’s annual budget. Moreover, the bill violates the 14th Amendment and will likely result in a lawsuit that will be paid for by taxpayers.
But these arguments don’t get to the core of the debate, which is: We are being fooled into believing there is a problem that doesn’t exist. In the process, we are looking like an anti-immigrant, xenophobic state, which will drive tourism and foreign business development away, perhaps, as successfully as the state of Arizona.
Since the housing bubble burst in 2007 and our economy tanked, politicians have been flailing about for solutions. And when solutions aren’t easily at hand, they look for scapegoats.
Illegal immigrants! They’re stealing jobs! They’re sucking resources from an already cash-strapped state! But the atmosphere of blame and attack has gotten so bad as to poison the well for anyone who came to this country from another part of the world. Let’s remember that the English-only driver license bill targets legal immigrant citizens.
I believe there is a way to solve our problems without fueling unnecessary flames of misunderstanding or hate among neighbors. I believe there are ways to find commonality, to re-frame the discussion so we can find solutions to seemingly intractable problems. More than 130 organizations and individuals have so far endorsed a statement of five values to guide and encourage a more reasoned, civil discussion about immigration in Georgia. Please join this movement to value our economy and people over politics. And let’s encourage our legislators to use their time and our tax dollars more productively. If we do, useless bills like HB 72 should never see the light of day.
Helen Kim Ho is the executive director of the Asian American Legal Advocacy Center Inc. (AALAC) of Georgia.
