Wirt,

I live in Mesa AZ and if English is the official language to be spoken by
government employee's then someone needs to inform the Chandler Police Dept. that
they are in violation.  It appears they have an officer who is teaching spanish to
other officers so they can better communicate with those members of their
community (legal, and otherwise).

L. A. Barnes

Wirt Atmar wrote:

> Glenn writes:
>
> > Wirt writes:
> >
> >  > No state has an official language. Neither does the United States, as a
> >  > federal policy.
> >
> >  To paraphrase an old saying, "If it's on the Internet, it must be true." ;)
> >
> >  With this in mind, here's a page which provides a counterpoint to the
> >  "no state has an official language" claim:
> >
> >          < http://www.latino.com/opinion/0505osid.html >
>
> I was clearly wrong when I said no state has an official language. The page
> above lists those states that do. Worse yet, I had forgotten about the
> Arizona controversy (and I'm originally from Arizona). Arizona enacted the
> most restrictive law in the country a few years back, requiring only English
> to be spoken by state government workers while on the job (there are a bunch
> of idiots in Arizona that get elected to state governmental positions :-).
> The Arizona law was declared unconstitutional by the lower Federal courts,
> but later dismissed as moot by the US Supreme Court, because by the time it
> reached the high court, the state worker who filed the original complaint had
> quit her job. As a technical consequence, the Arizona law currently stands --
> until it is challenged again.
>
> Wirt Atmar