Democratic presidential candidate Amy Klobuchar, a recovering moderate, told reporters on Friday that she now opposes making English the official language of the United States. While campaigning for the Democratic presidential nomination in Nevada, a state where Hispanics now make up a major constituency, the Minnesota senator disavowed a decade-old vote she cast that would have reversed an executive order signed by President Bill Clinton requiring materials used by federal agencies to be issued in languages other than English. Klobuchar attempted to explain her about face on the issue while speaking exclusively in English.
"I think that when you look at a state like this state, and a country like ours that is so diverse, you don’t want to have that provision in law because then it would be very difficult to have, say, government documents and other things translated into other languages," Klobuchar told reporters. "So that is not a position I take. I did vote that way, but way back then, along with many other people."
Of course, the difficulty lies in having everyone speaking a different language all the time and a general inability to understand what another person is saying. In a country already heavily divided, should we really be targeting the English language, the one great force we have left for national unity? Klobuchar is now willing to give it up, if it means winning the party's nomination.
The senator is now battling Pete Buttigieg for the support of Hispanics and African Americans support, so she's having to change any moderate positions she may have previously held regarding immigration. As the AP notes, Buttigieg recently knocked Klobuchar at a Hispanic forum for another one of the senator's earlier votes, this one to confirm Kevin McAleenan as commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection. Sens. Bernie Sanders (D-VT) and Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) both voted against his confirmation.
Klobuchar defended her confirmation vote, telling the AP she "vehemently" disagrees with the border policies of the Trump administration and said Obama officials and other Democrats had recommended McAleenan for the position.
As polls show, Americans overwhelmingly support making English the official language of the United States.