A good question about my blog post on the EnglishFirst referendum and too long of an answer

John Lamb, a very good man who publishes HispanicNashville.com, asks the following question in regards to my earlier post on the probable denial of a place on the November ballot for the EnglishFirst referendum:

Your post suggests the importance of the Charter by championing citizens' right to change it.

You must also then believe in the importance of the Charter's timeliness provision, which determines when and how often a petition-driven proposal can appear on the ballot.

You do not, however, address the Charter's timeliness provision in your post about whether the measure should be put on the ballot this November. Have you considered that provision as a factor in your opinion?

If you have considered the timeliness provision, it is unclear whether you believe that the measure should be on the ballot this November because (a) the Charter's timeliness provision should always be interpreted in such a way that would put a measure on the ballot if there were ever any wiggle room in whether it was the right time for such a measure, no matter what standard rules of legal interpretation would have us conclude or (b) the Charter's provisions on timeliness should be waived in favor of giving people a voice in their government.

Just curious where you are on the timeliness provision.

Good question, John, as always.

After reading Ken Whitehouse's solid piece in the NashvillePost.com, I came to understand the matter more clearly.

http://www.nashvillepost.com/news/2007/2/21/no_mas_on_english_first_bill_for_at_least_a_year

It clearly was the intent of the Charter authors that it be very difficult to alter the document. And that is not based on any two year rule, but preventing more than one change to the Charter during one council's sitting.

So EnglishFirst will be on the ballot next year, during council races which makes its passage even more certain -- probably with even more heinous provisions than in the one that was proposed for the November ballot.

The timeliness provision of the Metro Charter was used by opponents of the EnglishFirst referendum to block the initiative, not to accentuate the need to follow the law. If opponents could have found any records on Councilman Eric Crafton and bedwetting, they would have taken that tact, too, in derailing a vote of the people.

More than 10,000 Metro citizens signed a petition to vote on changing the law. That remains impressive.

By the letter of the law, proponents still failed. The timeliness provision prevailed. I don't like it. I don't think it should be tied to a council but to election cycles of two years or almost two years.

Ultimately, all that the opponents are doing is delaying the inevitable. They could not win the argument in the marketplace of ideas, so they hijacked the matter before a commission that led to a court. I never heard opponents cite the timeliness provision when they got a resolution passed in the council. And Whitehouse said he was being told by Metro officials last week that the referendum would be on the ballot.

A lot of integrity was missing on the opponents' side. While much media attention was focused on whose money was backing the referendum, little was written or telecast about who was funding the other side. The Metro Chamber of Commerce, which has done its best to ruin public education here, is against the referendum -- not because it is the right thing to do, but it could cost members big profits in their businesses.

If morality was really its aim, then the chamber would now be speaking out against the heinous 287g deportation program targeted at immigrants. But I haven't heard any chamber officers publicly speak against this inhumanity, or read media columnists and editorial boards coming out in opposition.

Meanwhile, too many -- but not all -- referendum opponents have shown themselves to be in the backpockets of the local Democratic Party. They won't dare criticize Mayor Karl Dean or Congressman Jim Cooper in public even though both have made 287g possible in Nashville by their acquiesence to wrong. I find no Profile in Courage in that.

By the timeliness provision of the Metro Charter, referendum opponents have won ... for the time being. By they have sown the seeds of even more of a backlash against Nashville's immigrant community.

The voiceless there will have to suffer more, as 287g continues to pick up political steam, tortures more pregnant mothers about to deliver American citizens and let's Democratic lawmakers in Nashville off the hook lest they feel the least bit uncomfortable.

John, you've won the battle but have ensured that immigrants here may well lose the war.