Sunday, August 29, 2010

Speak Now (In English)… Revoke Executive Order 13166

This is an email I received this week from ProEnglish.org :

Last week, the Department of Justice released a statement commemorating August as the 10th anniversary of former President Bill Clinton’s signing of Executive Order 13166, or Improving Access to Services for Persons with Limited English Proficiency. EO 13166 says that any entity which receives federal funds must provide whatever services it offers in any foreign language spoken by anyone likely to receive those services.

Rep. Peter King (R-NY) has introduced a bill (H.R. 1228) that will effectively revoke this executive order. H.R. 1228 provides that EO 13166 will have “no force or effect, and it will prohibit use of the funds for its purposes.” The bill currently has 28 cosponsors, but we need more! Please urge your congressman to become a co-sponsor today!

TAKE ACTION

EO 13166 must be revoked because:


* Executive orders do not carry the full force of congressionally-approved law, yet EO 13166 is being treated as if it did.
* EO 13166 has opened a whole new field of medical malpractice liability, as well as increased the number of “civil rights” lawsuits against government and private agencies.
* National origin is not the same as language. EO 13166 says that failure to comply with its terms constitutes “discrimination on the basis of national origin,” but numerous court decisions have rejected attempts to equate language with discrimination.
* It is a very expensive unfunded federal mandate. EO 13166 orders federal fund recipients to pay for the cost of translation and interpreter services with their own money, so there is no federal reimbursement.