In the “Before the Bench” segment with Judge Andrew Napolitano during Studio B, Judge Andrew and Shep Smith were discussing the Senate’s two votes making English official.

Shep: Before the Bench on a Friday, the debate over making English our national language. The Senate voted twice yesterday. First they made English the country’s official language and then, well, not so much. Later they passed another measure to make English the nation’s common and unifying language, which really changes all of our lives. This, after some critics argued that those with limited English wouldn’t be able to get the help they need. With us now is Judge Andrew Napolitano our senior judicial analyst and a former New Jersey Superior Court Judge. What did they do? Is it anything?

Judge Andrew: No. It’s just symbolic. They are fighting over symbols and they took the use of the English language and interpreted it as a symbol, one of the many symbols in the national and divisive immigration debate.

Shep: Of course, making English the national language is not about people who don’t like to hear another language because they don’t like to hear another language, there is the argument that it would be much cheaper for the nation to run in that way and further there is the argument that immigrants are going to do better if they learn to speak the language.

Judge Andrew: All immigrants will do better if they learn to speak English if they can assimilate in and there are many laws in this country already with respect to the English language. All fifty states require that their trials in their courtrooms are in English. That documents filed with the court and with the government are in English. The federal government already requires that trials in federal courts be in English. You have to understand English to be on a jury.

Shep: Is there any question about what the language is?

Judge Andrew: No. There’s no question of what the language would be and there’s no question but that either of these two bills are utterly toothless.

Shep: They don’t mean anything.

Judge Andrew: Correct. They don’t force anything and they don’t prohibit anything. They were just symbolic.

Shep: Is that sort of thing just for the crowd that wants to throw the bums out? They’re trying to do anything that they can do?

Judge Andrew: Yes. Yes, I think you can say that. It was a debate that was unneccessary. What was very interesting about it - you and I were talking about this during the break - it’s the first time in my memory that the Senate - that either house - has passed two bills that are slightly different from each other and sent them to the other side. The House is going to say, “Well which one do you want us to consider?” Twelve senators voted for both bills after they debated for two hours. Very, very hot debate over this in which the Democrats accuse the Republicans of being racist and the Republicans accuse the Democrats of not caring about American values and traditions. And what was accomplished?

Shep: Nothing.

Judge Andrew: Right.

Shep: Well there seems to be a pattern here of nothing.

Judge Andrew: Yes. It’s taking a symbol, a wall, a fence, a soldier at the border - now the English language - and thrusting it in the middle of this immigration debate.

Shep: What would be the practical effect of a real law to make English the official language. What would that do, practically speaking?

Judge Andrew: Well, it depends on how extensive it was. For example, every state now has laws requiring the government to assist people that don’t speak English with translators when they deal with the government so if a Spanish speaker showed up at New York City looking for a marriage license, there’s a Spanish speaking clerk that can assist that person. If the Congress wants to prohibit that type of assistance, that would be catastropic for immigrants, if the the Congress just wants to say all official government shall be in English, there will be no change because it already is. So, nobody should lose any sleep over this, because if either one of these things is adopted by the House and the President signs either one, there’ll be no change and no one will know the difference. Except the Senators that argued over it.

This is where I have an issue with Judge Andrew’s take on this.

Why should the U.S. Government provide translators and translation services to immigrants of any national background or native language? There are too many immigrants speaking too many languages to be able to accomodate them all. Why are we accommodating a certain few?

My first marriage was in Germany. My husband and I had to hire - at our own expense - a translator for the marriage ceremony and to have the documents (birth certificates, etc) translated. Even if we were fluent in German, we were required to hire a translator at our own expense.

Shep: I wonder if they heard there’s things that need to be fixed over here?

Judge Andrew: One would hope they had.

Shep: I wonder if sometimes the message from outside the beltway ever makes it inside the beltway? Or if they have some sort of blurring device that doesn’t let the message get in.

Judge Andrew: You know Senator Lindsay Graham went out of his way to be the peacemaker here and to say, “enough is enough. We really have more important things to do.” And as a result of his saying that, they voted on both of these bills. It seems silly that they voted on both, but you know what? He stopped the nonsense and he got the Senate back on more important things like troops at the border and immigration and enforcing the laws that already exist.

Shep: Judge, grazie.

Judge Andrew: Prego

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