Metro Legal Calls Metro Council's Monolingual Bill "A Surrogate for Racial Discrimination"

Bruce Barry at PiTW is first with the legal details on Metro's sentence against "English Only/First." Metro Legal believes it will violate the Equal Protection Clause; jump and read the rest. Bruce also published Mayor Purcell's entire comment on his veto. Here's one exerpt that just may hit you upside the head:

This ordinance was introduced last September and for the last six months the sponsors have been twisting arms and trading votes to get it passed. Some sponsors say it is an important law while other sponsors say it has no effect at all. The truth is that no one knows how this law may ultimately be interpreted. If this law takes effect, this city will be engaged in years of lawsuits testing the effect and constitutionality of the ordinance. That means hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees whether we win or lose, for no good reason.

Legal fees are bad and unneeded, yes. But that trading votes charge especially rubs me the wrong way. If it is true it means that the brand of vote trading that went on during the Kay Brooks/School Board fiasco never stopped. Given that Council Member John Summers inexplicably voted for the monolingual bill, I'm left to wonder what he got in return.