English-Only Appeal Goes to Supreme Court

In the face of a growing backlash over the use of Spanish as a second language in much of the nation, the Supreme Court said Monday that it would consider reviving an Arizona voter initiative that makes English the only language for “all government functions and actions.”

In a brief order, the justices agreed to hear an appeal filed by a group known as “Arizonans for Official English,” which sponsored the measure in 1988. Its leaders said that the government not only must recognize English as the “official language” but use it in all of its daily dealings with the public.

Twenty-three states, including California, have adopted measures declaring English their “official language,” but most do not go as far as the Arizona initiative.

Last year, a U.S. appeals court, on a 6-5 vote, struck down the Arizona measure for violating the free-speech rights of a Spanish-speaking state employee.

The Supreme Court, led by two conservative Arizonans--Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist and Justice Sandra Day O’Connor--appears inclined to reverse that ruling.

In recent years, the high court generally has upheld the wishes of the majority of voters and limited the free-speech rights of public employees.

For example, in a closely watched abortion case in 1991, the court said doctors and nurses who take federal funds do not have a free-speech right to encourage abortion. Writing for the court, Rehnquist said public employees do not have a right to espouse a message that conflicts with the views of the government that employs them.

Lawyers for the English-only advocates cited that decision as precedent for reversing the appeals court.

A Supreme Court ruling reviving the “English-only” amendment could spur the backlash against immigration and encourage cutbacks in services for non-English-speaking newcomers.

In the Republican primaries, Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole (R-Kan.) and his prime challenger, commentator Patrick J. Buchanan, have called for a federal declaration of English as the nation’s official language.

Still, the court case is likely to have more symbolic importance than practical impact.

In Arizona, even proponents of the “English-only” amendment conceded that the state will continue to offer bilingual education in classrooms and bilingual ballots in the voting booth. That is so, they said, because federal law requires it.

They agreed even that a government official can speak Spanish to a Spanish-speaking person who seeks a driver’s license, welfare aid or any other public benefit.

Robert D. Park, a retired federal immigration agent from Prescott who headed the group that sponsored the Arizona initiative, agreed that the measure would not have much real effect in the state if upheld by the Supreme Court.

“It’s not going to change much. We have never maintained [that] it requires the exclusion of services” in the native language for those who do not speak English, Park said in a telephone interview.

But, he added, most voters want to stop the move “toward greater and greater accommodation to other languages. We believe all state documents must be in English only.”

In 1986, California’s voters overwhelmingly approved a state constitutional amendment declaring English the official language of the state. But officials in Sacramento said that measure did not change how the government operates and will not be directly affected by the outcome in the Arizona dispute.

The Arizona case is muddled by procedural problems, leaving open the possibility that the justices could void the lower court decision without deciding whether an English-only rule is constitutional.

In the order agreeing to hear the case (Arizonans for Official English vs. Arizona, 95-974), the high court told the lawyers that it also wanted to hear arguments on whether the citizens group had “standing” to appeal the lower court decision and whether a “case or controversy” remained after the Spanish-speaking employee quit the state service.

The dispute prompted a fierce battle in the lower courts.

It began in November 1988, when Arizona’s voters, by a razor-thin majority of 50.5%, approved the broad measure. It said that “the English language is the language of the ballot, the public schools and all government functions and actions” and is to be used by “all government officials and employees during the performance of government business.”

The entire hierarchy of state officials had opposed the initiative. A lawsuit challenging the measure was brought on behalf of Maria-Kelley Yniquez, a bilingual state employee who said that she often needed to speak Spanish to people who came to her state office seeking information.

In response, the state attorney general’s office issued a statement saying that the amendment “does not prohibit the use of other languages when they are reasonably required in the day-to-day operation of government.”

Nonetheless, a federal judge in Phoenix invalidated the measure, and then-Gov. Rose Mofford refused to appeal. Arizonans for Official English appealed to the U.S. 9th Circuit Court, but lost.

“The state cannot, consistent with the First Amendment, gag the employees currently providing members of the public with information,” wrote Judge Stephen Reinhardt of Los Angeles.

In dissent, Judge Alex Kozinski said public employees do have a free-speech right to say what they want on their own time, but they do not have a right to defy the wishes of the voters.

The high court will hear the case in the fall.

The justices also agreed to review a second opinion written by Reinhardt, this one in an environmental dispute.

The Endangered Species Act allows “any person” to file a lawsuit to enforce its provisions. Under that clause, two Oregon ranchers sued, saying the government went too far in protecting the shortnose sucker, an endangered fish.

Reinhardt, speaking for the 9th Circuit, threw out the suit on grounds that it did not seek to further the aim of the law. But the court agreed to hear an appeal filed by the ranchers (Bennett vs. Plenert, 95-813).