Information on bills coming up in the Senate and Congress
- By Paul M. Weyrich
October 28, 2003

Every now and again I have several items I want to call to your attention.
So here it goes:

Item One: Senator Wayne Allard (R-Co.), one of the most decent men serving
in public life, has introduced the Religious Liberties Restoration Act (S
1558). The bill has been referred to the Judiciary Committee where Sen.
Arlen Specter (R.-Pa) holds the swing vote.

This measure is really a states' rights measure via the Tenth Amendment.
The Allard bill simply affirms that each state would have the right to
display our national motto (In God We Trust), would be able to recite the
Pledge of Allegiance with the words "under God" included, and would have the
right to display the Ten Commandments.

The bill would only apply to public buildings, and that would include
schools where the Pledge is most often recited.

The way this bill accomplishes its objectives is to withdraw jurisdiction on
these matters from any court inferior to the Supreme Court. Had this bill
been in force, the Ninth Circuit court of appeals would not have been able
to issue their infamous decision declaring the Pledge unconstitutional. And
in Alabama, the State Supreme Court could continue to display the Ten
Commandments.

Of course I support the objectives of the bill, but in my view it is well
worth consideration because of the precedent of removing courts from
jurisdiction. That idea is one that deserves greater use. No less than the
then-Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle passed a measure removing the
jurisdiction of the lower courts regarding a matter which pertained mainly
to South Dakota, so liberals will be hard pressed to claim that Allard is
destroying the Constitution by this action. The Founders put this provision
in the Constitution for precisely such matters to which this bill pertains.
One would hope the Senate leadership would get on board this worthy cause.

Item two: Rep. Peter King (R-NY), no down-the-line conservative he,
nevertheless has introduced H.R. 931. His bill would repeal bi-lingual
voting requirements. He would restrict Clinton's Executive Order 13166,
which requires that when federal funds are involved, information about the
use of those funds must be available in any language that a citizen speaks.
The Bush Justice Department is now enforcing this Executive Order, combined
with the Voting Rights Act. It will lead to so much chaos it will make us
nostalgic for Florida in 2000.

King's bill would also make English the only official language of the USA.
This is a measure that I hope the Congressional leadership has the courage
to take up. I say courage because the minute someone raises the issue of
English being the only official language in this country he is labeled a
racist. I am convinced that is why President George W. Bush didn't repeal
E.O. 13166, which even Clinton was ashamed to issue. We were positive that
he would overturn this Executive Order the way he did Clinton's cancellation
of the Mexico City Policy and other issues as well. No, he is enforcing
this hideous construction with an aggressiveness that even the Clinton White
House did not display.

English First, under the capable leadership of Jim Boulet, is pushing the
King measure. He provided an excellent example of why bi-lingual ballots are
a terrible idea. In the Flushing area of New York in 2000, the Chinese
ballot translated the Democrat label on all state races as Republican while
Republican was translated as Democrat. The absentee ballot for state
Supreme Court in English instructed voters to "vote for any three" but the
Chinese ballot told voters to "vote for any five." Then later it said to
vote for any three.

English must be the official language here and those who live here must
learn English just as my father had to do when he came here from Germany in
1923. And others of our relatives from Norway, Russia, Italy and Albania
had to learn English. It made them part of America.

Finally item three: You will recall back when the Democrats were in charge
of the Executive and Legislative branches of government, they had the
American Bar Association involved in the selection of judicial nominees.
Many of us had insisted that the ABA should have no special role in picking
judges and indeed, President Bush 43 removed the ABA from this position,
something that his father and Ronald Reagan had declined to do. Well, when
that happened the Democrats howled to high heaven and insisted that the ABA
ratings were the "gold standard" of judging judicial nominees.

Larson Frisby of the ABA was kind enough to provide me with the ABA ratingsfor the 108th Congress. The ABA has two categories for such nominees,Qualified and Well Qualified. Remember all of the circuit court nominees that liberals claim are extremist? Miguel Estrada, Carolyn Kuhl, PatriciaOwen, Charles Pickering, William Pryor, Claude Allen, and Janice Rogers Brown come to mind. Every one of these has been judged "well qualified" either unanimously or by a substantial majority. Not a single nominee was graded simply "qualified."

So what do we hear from the liberals about the ABA now? Would that
organization, no bastion of conservatism, really rate all of these
controversial judges as "well qualified" if they were extremist ideologues?
I rather doubt it. The next time you encounter a liberal Senator you might
ask him or her about the ABA. If they denounce the ABA as being part of the
right wing conspiracy, why we'll just have to revise our charts. Marion
Harrison, President of Free Congress, used to be involved with the ABA.
Perhaps he now secretly controls that organization. Or perhaps the liberals
are just liars.

Paul M. Weyrich is Chairman and CEO of the Free Congress Foundation.

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The Debt To The Penny

10/24/2003 $6,847,437,986,849.37
10/22/2003 $6,834,787,133,873.25
10/20/2003 $6,834,248,759,903.16
10/16/2003 $6,830,709,313,106.40
10/14/2003 $6,816,232,489,123.39