We alerted you last week that Indiana State Rep. Suzanne Crouch (R-78^th) had introduced a bill, HB 1255, that would: 1) Require that all official state documents and communications are printed in no language other than English, and 2) require that driver’s manuals, written exams and the like will be printed in no language other than English.

Last week, the bill easily passed the House Government and Regulatory Reform Committee by a vote of 8 to 2, so the next stop is the House floor and that vote could occur as early as TODAY!  Recent news stories have been reporting that the vote could occur today, sometime after 3:00pm CST when the House reconvenes.

TAKE ACTION!

Even though English has been the official language of Indiana since 1984, the Indiana DMV still allows driver’s license written exams to be taken in languages other than English—including Japanese and Spanish—despite the fact that all road signs are written exclusively in English.

Although the amount of taxpayer dollars spent on multilingual services in Indiana is currently unknown, it is not uncommon.  Federal agencies do not report their yearly expenditures on multilingual services, so the exact cost to taxpayers at the federal level is also unknown, however, OMB (the Office of Management and Budget) estimates that the total national cost of providing language assistance services and documents to be as high as $1 to $2 billion annually.

TAKE ACTION!

Call your State Rep. NOW and tell them to vote YES on HB 1255 if it is brought to the House floor today for a vote!

Additional Reading:

ProEnglish Backgrounder:  Why Drivers Must Know English

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