Wednesday, December 6, 2006

Nashville resists language ban for now; world is watching

The Tennessean reports here and the City Paper reports here that the Metro Council did not pass the proposed language ban on third reading last night (most recent story here). Instead, a final vote on the ordinance alternately called "English First" or "English Only" was postponed until February.

The media will spread this story far beyond Nashville: the (Jacksonville) Florida Times-Union has already published this AP report, which frames Nashville's action in this area as a big city considering whether it wants to join the growing number of small towns aiming ordinances at both legal and illegal immigrants. Update: a Google news search shows that as of 10:45am, publications in Georgia, Florida, and North Carolina, as well as the International Herald Tribune, have already picked up the AP story.

The City Paper article described opponents of the ban appearing "en masse" at the Council hearing last night, while supporters were silent, if not absent.

The AP report contains this quote: "[The sponsor] deferred this because he didn't have the votes,' said Ralph Schulz, president and CEO of the Nashville Area Chamber of Commerce. 'It cruised through the first reading, passed the second and tonight it was not passable.'"

The ban's sponsor said that the measure is misunderstood and that he would attempt to educate his fellow council members in the coming months.

No comments:

Post a Comment

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...