To those of you who do not know who the group OWN actually are, here is how they describe themselves-
One Wisconsin Now, Inc. (OWN) is the beginning of a long-term effort to re-light the flame of Wisconsin's proud progressive tradition on public policy with a state-based plan to modernize and strengthen our state's progressive infrastructure, to build the common good, and to win the ideas and values debate in Wisconsin.
Basically they are liberals, trying to push their liberal agenda in Wisconsin.
OWN asks the question- "Why did Paul Ryan vote against bilingual ballots?"
Well there are a couple of different possible answers to this question-
1. Congressman Ryan may have voted against bilingual ballots for the same reason that this blogger posted his blog in English- because this is America and in America we speak, read and write in English.
2. Another reason Congressman Ryan may have voted against bilingual ballots is because he knows that in order to become a US citizen, every person, not born in this country, have to take a citizenship test. The citizenship test is written in English- so some basic skills for citizenship is reading and writing in English, or they cannot even take the citizenship test. (by the way, unless a person is a US citizen, it is illegal for them to vote. Even if a person has lived here for 50 years, if they are not a legal US citizen, they cannot vote.)
3. Congressman Ryan could have been doing his job as a representative and represented the people in his district. Polls show overwhelming support for English being the official language of this country.(Rasmussen poll) As a representative of the people who live in the first district, Congressman Ryan is listening to these people.
There could be a multitude of reasons why Congressman Ryan voted against bilingual ballots. I don't know why he did. However, I do know that when he voted against bilingual ballots, his vote was representing my opinion, which is precisely why the 1st district keeps sending him back to Washington.
Congressman Paul Ryan represents us, the 1st district of Wisconsin!
By the way, as a side note- a friend of mine(you people know her as "Republican Teacher" on this blog) asked me an interesting question today when we were discussing this. She asked how it is possible to accurately translate the referendums or constitutional amendments onto a bilingual ballot?
We all know how difficult some of the referendums and amendments can be to understand for folks who think they have mastered the English language. Yikes. How is it possible to translate these verbatim into another language.
We know that English is it's own unique language and does not translate exactly to any other language in the world.
We have also seen knock down drag outs in the legislature over one single word or a phrase that goes into a amendment.
How are these being translated exactly the way the legislature wrote them? Hum? That's a good question. I don't know. I'll look into it and see if I can find an answer. If anyone else can shed some light- that would be great.
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