Last Night's Roll Call to Table Crafton's Anti-Immigrant Agenda is a Litmus Test for Hypocrisy on Fees

Last night the Metro Council voted 22-15 to table Eric "English Only" Crafton's bill to exact interpreters fees on people whose primary language is not English. The 15 who voted with Crafton against the tabling motion include two at-large members who are supposed to be representing all of us: Tim Garrett and Charlie Tygard. Here are the rest who supported raising government fees on people who may or may not have resources to hire interpreters:

• Michael Craddock
• Karen Bennett
• Jim Gotto
• Carl Burch
• Phil Claiborne
• Buddy Baker
• Edith Langster
• "English Only" Crafton
• Randy Foster
• Duane Dominy
• Mike Hodge
• Parker Toler
• Robert Duvall

Let's bracket the point that this list includes mostly social conservatives who would be ideologically predisposed to Crafton's nativist appeal. What needs to be underscored is the fact that many of the members on this list, Craddock, Gotto, Tygard, Hodge, Duvall claim to be conservatives on budget issues and they have railed and will rail against raising revenues through taxes or fees. This vote should come back to haunt them in the future whenever they grandstand and posture "for the taxpayers" against raising other fees.

And on the subject of opposing raising government fees, how come the Tennessee Tax Revolt didn't aggressively oppose Eric Crafton's attempt to raise interpreter's fees? Is the Revolt more anti-immigrant than anti-fee?

Finally, in what looks like one of the greater curiosities of last night's vote on the tabling motion, my own representative, Erica Gilmore (District 19) abstained. Personally, I would like to know where she stands on this issue and why she didn't vote against interpreters fees that look ethnically prejudiced to me.