Who paid for Nashville’s English-Only measure? Not Nashville.
Given that you all allowed me to muck the blog up with information about Nashville’s English-Only challenge this past month, I think it’s valuable to offer this follow-up:
The financial disclosure is out and 90% of the money that funded the effort to shut down translations in Nashville’s government came from an out-of-state group.
“Nashville English First raised $89,722.76 for its campaign, according to campaign financial disclosures released today.Of that, ProEnglish of Arlington, Va., contributed $82,500. A second donor, Nashville businessman Lee Beaman, gave $6,000, meaning two donors funded more than 98 percent of Nashville English First’s campaign.The Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks hate groups around the country, has linked ProEnglish to such activity through other organizations founded by ProEnglish’s founder, Dr. John H. Tanton.Tanton has denied that any of his organizations are hate groups.”
The group who helped defeat this measure, Nashville For All of Us, raised nearly $300,000, much from local, individual donors.
Did you catch that up there? 98% of all the money came from just two donors.
We’re a city of 600,000.
Nashville voters spoke up for their city — and all its residents — and defeated the measure January 22.
It’s important that everyone knows how to speak English. But that doesn’t mean forbidding people to speak their native language – something that pro-english radicals seem unable to differentiate.
Tony, agreed.