House of Representatives Votes To Limit English in the Workplace Lawsuits

The U.S. House of Representatives voted 218-186 last night to request that the final appropriations bill for the U.S. Department of Commerce, Justice and State include provisions that prohibit funds from being used by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) to initiate or participate in a lawsuit against a business because the business requires an employee to speak English while performing work. Thirty-six Democrats joined a majority of Republicans in supporting the measure, which was offered by Rep. Rodney Frelinghuysen of New Jersey.

The passed measure requests that the Representatives and Senators appointed to iron out the differences between the House and Senate versions of the bill defer to the Senate passed measure. The prohibition is already included in the version approved by the Senate, where it was added at the committee level.

If agreed to by the conferees, passed and signed into law, the measure would prohibit the EEOC from using taxpayer dollars to pursue actions against companies with English-in-the-workplace rules. Numerous court cases have validated the common sense notion that employers in the United States have a general right to require employees to speak English on the job, but the EEOC has attacked aspects of these rules as being pretexts for "national origin discrimination," a legal theory that Congress has never passed into law.