Crafton resurrects 'English only' debate

It wasn’t long after Eric Crafton’s ‘English First’ bill ended in legislative failure last year that something strange happened — people started coming up to him on the street and encouraging him to continue fighting the good fight, he says.

“I didn’t even ask for there to be an override in Council for [Mayor Purcell’s veto of the legislation that would have made English the official language of Metro] because I didn’t have the 27 votes,” said Crafton, a west Nashville Councilman. “In the meantime, I had so many citizens come up to me and say, ‘I appreciate you’re doing that, but what are we going to do now?’”

What Crafton has decided to do is cut out the middlemen and middlewomen — Metro Council — where he likely would not garner enough votes to pass the ordinance again.

Instead, Crafton is giving the power to the registered voters of Davidson County. He’s started a ballot initiative, which will have its official kickoff on Monday when he’ll mail out 15,000 postcards to registered voters.

Crafton has also started a Web site, nashvilleenglishfirst.com, where people can sign petitions online and donate money to the cause.

The postcards say, “Let the people vote on making English Nashville government’s official language.”

In order to get the proposed charter amendment on the November ballot, Crafton’s group will need 10,103 signatures by the middle of August. If the charter amendment gets on the ballot, it will only require a simple majority in order to take effect.

“We need to do this to help those who don’t know English be more mainstreamed into society so they can learn English and be successful,” Crafton said. “For us to be a successful county like we have in the past, we need all the immigrants coming in to learn English. It’s a unifying factor, not a divider, as the far left demagogues and oppressors would say.”

After learning of Crafton’s ballot initiative, Mayor Karl Dean said he was going to request the legal department to review it.

Dean added that the wording of the initiative was similar to last year’s bill, which had its state and federal constitutionality questioned by the legal department, which later found it unconstitutional.

“Our government doesn’t need to spend taxpayer money defending this in court,” Dean said. “We live in a global economy and the image we want to project of Nashville to the rest of the world is that we’re a welcoming and open city, and that we’re able to communicate with people in more than just our own language.”

Dean specifically took issue with specific phrasing of the charter amendment proposal, which states, “No person shall have a right to government services in any other language.”

That portion goes further than simply making English Metro’s official language.

“As a government, we have a responsibility to protect and care for all of our citizens no matter the language they speak,” Dean said. “Whether it’s someone who is a victim of a crime or someone reporting a crime or an accident, we should have the ability to communicate with them.”

Stephen Fotopulos, policy director for the Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights Coalition, said Crafton’s ballot initiative would erase the goodwill shown after Purcell’s veto.

“We have a large number of refugees in this city — Sudanese, Somali, Kurdish,” Fotopulos said. “You don’t learn English in a refugee camp, you learn it once you get here.

“We’re not talking about the importance of learning English, we’re talking about how we treat people while they’re learning.”

Crafton has also received some criticism from fellow Council members, including District 23 Councilwoman Emily Evans, who voted in favor of his bill last year. Evans pointed out the wording in the final phrase means, to her, that the proposed amendment would have little legal bearing. The final sentence reads, “Nothing in this measure shall be interpreted to conflict with state or federal law.”

Evans points out that English is already the official language of the state of Tennessee.

“I will always encourage opportunities for the voters to express their views. I am also very fond of my colleague and friend, Eric Crafton,” Evans said. “That said, my reading of the… ballot initiative suggests that it will have no impact on the delivery of services by the Metro government in as many languages as necessary and practical.”

Evans also questioned — considering the potentially limited scope of the proposed amendment — whether it was merely an effort to bring the conservative demographic of voters to the polls.

“Given that this ballot initiative will yield little in the way of actual results I imagine it will be more effective as a way to drive a certain type of voter to the polls in November,” Evans said.

At-large Councilwoman Megan Barry said the initiative was out-of-place at a time when Nashville is trying to enhance its reputation for being friendly to visitors.

“We’re focused on trying to make Nashville a welcoming city for people of all nationalities and this just takes us in the wrong place,” Barry said.

According to Ben Cunningham, the anti-tax activist who helped push across the 2006 ballot initiative on giving voters the say on when property taxes are raised, Crafton’s initiative is favorable because it gives the power to the people of Davidson County.

After getting the appropriate number of signatures, the property tax charter amendment garnered 77 percent support in 2006.

“The will of the people expressed directly or through their officials is what counts,” Cunningham said. “Probably most people would say this issue is a popular issue and my guess is it will pass. Most of the polling I’ve seen in Tennessee and nationally says this is a popular measure to take.”

Crafton is not naïve about the emotions the topic evokes and he’s gearing up for the criticisms he expects to face.

One thing Crafton says he won’t stand for is the implication that race has anything to do with his efforts.

After living in Japan for a number of years, Crafton married a native of that country. He said his experiences both living in another country and seeing his wife Miiko assimilate to life stateside led to his belief that making English Nashville’s official language is critical.

“The opponents are going to say, ‘Crafton’s a racist,’” he said. “My wife’s from Japan — she came here and learned English. My brother-in-law is a first generation naturalized citizen from Mexico. He took his driver’s test three times in English before he passed, because he wanted to learn English and be a part of society.

“Me wanting to make English the government’s official language for all the boards, commissions, Council meetings, any action that binds the city, is a unifying factor. We’re going to be one community and we’re not going to prefer one immigrant community over another,” he said. “That’s a unifying factor, it’s not racially motivated.”