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September 26, 2009 BY MARK J. KONKOL Staff Reporter/mkonkol@suntimes.com Will fewer black students get admitted to Chicago's magnet and selective enrollment schools next year? That's the question school watchdogs are asking after a federal judge this week lifted a nearly 30-year-old consent decree ordering the desegregation of Chicago Public Schools. The ruling will likely end the consideration of race as a factor in determining who gets accepted to some of the city's best-performing public schools. "Our primary concern is to ensure there is a fair and equal access to selective enrollment and magnet schools throughout the city," ACLU legal director...

...Fan and Fred also couldn't prosper for as long as they have without the support of the political left, both in Congress and the intellectual class. This includes Mr. Frank and Sen. Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.) on Capitol Hill, as well as Mr. Krugman and the Washington Post's Steven Pearlstein in the press. Their claim is that the companies are essential for homeownership. Yet as studies have shown, about half of the implicit taxpayer subsidy for Fan and Fred is pocketed by shareholders and management. According to the Federal Reserve, the half that goes to homeowners adds up to a...

Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's chief counsel, Thomas Saenz, has been tapped to become president and general counsel of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, the organization announced Tuesday. Saenz has been one of Villaraigosa's closest advisors since taking the post in August 2005, recently serving as the mayor's lead representative in negotiations with city labor unions over salary and benefit concessions to help close the city's $530-million budget gap. And he helped to successfully defend a city ordinance that required hotels near Los Angeles International Airport to pay a "living wage" to workers. Saenz also was one...

The Department of Justice on Tuesday said the state of Georgia's system cannot check driver’s license information and Social Security numbers to prove that prospective voters are U.S. citizens. Georgia’s voters have an entirely different perspective. Rasmussen Reports polling conducted during Election 2008 found that 77% said prospective voters should first be required to show a legal photo ID first. Georgia’s voters also held that view two years earlier despite a state judge’s ruling that a new law requiring a photo ID at the polls was a violation of the state constitution. Nationally, three-out-of-four U.S. voters (76%) said a person...

<p>President Obama's radical new nominee to replace Associate Justice David Souter on the Supreme Court, Sonia Sotomayor, used to serve on the board of LatinoJustice PRLDEF (White House backgrounder), one of the racial grievance groups that helped to sink the judicial nomination of Honduran-born Miguel Estrada in 2003.</p>

It’s an old device in politics: Set up a straw man to criticize when you can’t win an argument on your own. Such tactics, unfortunately, are standard fare when it comes to efforts by a handful of special interest groups to bring about amnesty for illegal immigrants. Organizations such as the National Council of La Raza, the Mexican-American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF), the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) and the Migration Policy Institute know that most Americans disagree with their desire for amnesty. Most Americans want to see immigration laws enforced. So these groups create straw...

The Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund has launched an online petition asking for signatures urging the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate the death of Luis Eduardo Ramirez Zavala and bring federal charges against the defendants who were acquitted on most county charges Friday. “There’s a strong federal interest in eradicating the bias that motivated the violence and a fed prosecution is definitely in the public interest,” MALDEF staff attorney Gladys Limon said in a telephone interview Tuesday. Two Shenandoah area teens were found not guilty of the most serious charges facing them in relation to the death...

It took seven hours and 40 minutes. Following an evening-long deliberation Friday, a Schuylkill County jury reached its verdict in the trial of two Shenandoah teens charged in the beating death of Luis Eduardo Ramirez Zavala, 25. Watch reaction videoBrandon J. Piekarsky, 17, of Shenandoah Heights, was found guilty of one count of simple assault and acquitted of all other charges in-cluding third-degree murder and aggravated assault. Derrick M. Donchak, 19, was found guilty of one count of simple assault. He was also found guilty of three counts of corruption of minors and three counts of furnishing alcohol to minors....

In a major legal win for immigrant workers, thousands of California construction workers will start receiving checks April 15 to compensate for unpaid wages and other alleged labor violations committed during California's housing boom. The $8.5 million legal settlement benefits nearly 3,100 former and current workers for several companies that built houses in Southern California, the Central Valley, Central Coast and San Francisco East Bay. A few workers initiated the complaint in 2006 after approaching a Spanish-speaking attorney, but lawyers say the case grew into one of the biggest class-action lawsuits in California involving mostly Latino construction laborers, including some...

In a little-noticed act of political faintheartedness, the Obama administration has pulled back from nominating Thomas Saenz, a highly regarded civil-rights lawyer and counsel to the mayor of Los Angeles, to run the Justice Department’s civil rights division. Saenz, the former top litigator in Los Angeles for the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, or Maldef...The floating of his name led to fierce outbursts from anti-immigrant groups and blogs, which detest him for being so good at what he does. He was a leader of the successful fight to block California’s Proposition 187...He has defended Latino day laborers who...

Capitol Hill Republicans threw the first legislative punch in the fight over union law on Wednesday, February 25. But Democrats could land a haymaker of their own later with a bill that is much more likely to obtain congressional approval. Members of the House and Senate GOP introduced a bill that would mandate secret-ballot elections to form a union. The measure is meant to counter a bill Democrats could debut any day that would make it easier for employees to organize. Called the Employee Free Choice Act, the Democratic bill would force companies to recognize unions when a majority of...

This just in: The Los Angeles Daily Journal is reporting that President Obama has tapped Thomas Saenz to head the civil rights division at the Department of Justice. Saenz, 42, the former vice president of litigation for the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund in Los Angeles, is currently serving as counsel to Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. ... Civil rights attorneys and academics in southern California praised the choice. “I don’t think the president or attorney general could make a better selection,” said Mark Rosenbaum, legal director of the ACLU of Southern California. “He’s a throwback to the...

Arizona rancher Roger Barnett initially faced the possibility of paying $32 million to compensate several illegal immigrants he stopped at gunpoint on his land. He walked away instead with a verdict that rejected any notion he violated the trespassers' civil rights and affirmed that U.S. citizens can still detain aliens crossing the border. What remains to be seen, though, is what impact the $77,800 in damages that a jury Tuesday ordered Mr. Barnett to pay will have on America's larger immigration debate and the efforts of some illegals to get compensation from a country they aren't even allowed to enter....

n a major setback for the illegal alien advocacy network’s strategy of legal intimidation, a federal jury in Tucson has rejected nearly all of the substantive claims brought by illegal alien advocacy group Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund (MALDEF) against Arizona rancher Roger Barnett. Earlier, on February 10, federal district judge John M. Roll threw out related conspiracy complaints against his wife Barbara and his brother Donald Barnett, and dismissed the claims brought by ten illegal aliens who did not testify in court. The Barnetts, who operate the Cross Rail Ranch near the Mexican border, were alleged to...

TUCSON, Ariz. — A federal jury found Tuesday that a southern Arizona rancher didn't violate the civil rights of a group of illegal immigrants who said he detained them at gunpoint in 2004..... The eight-member civil jury also found Roger Barnett wasn't liable on claims of battery and false imprisonment...... But the jury did find him liable on four claims of assault and four claims of infliction of emotional distress and ordered Barnett to pay $77,804 in damages — $60,000 of which were punitive..... Barnett declined to comment afterward, but one of his attorneys, David Hardy, said the plaintiffs lost...

An Arizona man who has waged a 10-year campaign to stop a flood of illegal immigrants from crossing his property is being sued by 16 Mexican nationals who accuse him of conspiring to violate their civil rights when he stopped them at gunpoint on his ranch on the U.S.-Mexico border. Roger Barnett, 64, began rounding up illegal immigrants in 1998 and turning them over to the U.S. Border Patrol, he said, after they destroyed his property, killed his calves and broke into his home. His Cross Rail Ranch near Douglas, Ariz., is known by federal and county law enforcement authorities...

Mexicans say Barnett violated their civil rights BISBEE — A trial started Monday in federal court in Tucson against a Douglas rancher and others charged with conspiring to violate the civil rights of some illegal immigrants along the U.S.-Mexico border. The defendants of the lawsuit are Roger Barnett, his wife, Barbara, and his brother, Donald. The plaintiffs are five women and 11 men who were in a wash in Douglas in 2004. The trial is taking place before Judge John Roll in U.S. District Court and is scheduled to run through Feb. 13. The Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational...

WASHINGTON (CNN)—Arizona Senator John McCain is adopting a major 2008 campaign slogan for a new political action committee designed to support not only his own planned re-election run in two years, but help him put his stamp on the rebuilding of the Republican Party. The formation of the “Country First” PAC is to be announced Wednesday, two sources familiar with the plans tell CNN. One of the sources called it the “first official step” of the GOP Senator’s re-election campaign. McCain made it clear not long after losing the presidential election that he intended to seek re-election to the Senate...

California Rep. Joe Baca has long pushed legislation he said would "open the doors to the American Dream" for first-time home buyers in his largely Hispanic district. For many of them, those doors have slammed shut, quickly and painfully. Mortgage lenders flooded Mr. Baca's San Bernardino, Calif., district with loans that often didn't require down payments, solid credit ratings or documentation of employment. Now, many of the Hispanics who became homeowners find themselves mired in the national housing mess. Nearly 9,200 families in his district have lost their homes to foreclosure. Congressional districts with large Hispanic populations often feature heavy...

Carried into the United States in her mother's arms, Maria became a criminal when she was just over 2-weeks-old. Of course, she did not know that at the time. Maria found out that she was an illegal immigrant when she began applying to colleges at 17, and told herself that if she was unable to gain U.S. citizenship by the time she was 30, she would leave the country forever. Now 22-years-old and a graduate student at Cal State Fullerton, Maria, who is still undocumented, said that she tries not to think about her lack of citizenship and the obstacles...

For eight years of Clinton, then eight years of Bush, Carlos Ortiz has waited. With the election of Obama, Ortiz hopes -- trusts -- he will have to wait no more to see his dream realized: the first Hispanic Supreme Court justice. "What more unifying appointment could there be than a Hispanic justice?" asks Ortiz, who began his campaign in 1987 as a board member, then as president, of the Hispanic National Bar Association and later as chair of the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund. "It's not just the right thing to do, but we deserve it. I...

Stanford law Professor Tino Cuéllar was named this week to lead President-elect Barack Obama's transition working group on immigration, putting him among the many scholars from the Bay Area who are helping shape the next administration.lawyers and immigration experts across the country praised him Friday for his intellect and his grasp of both regulatory minutiae and the big picture of American immigration policy. "He's brilliant beyond his years," said John Trasviña, president of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, who met Cuéllar when he was a law student at Yale and encouraged him to go to work in...

When I reported on September 19 that partisan career lawyers in the Civil Rights Division at the Department of Justice were planning on criminally targeting Republican political activists and candidates, this was treated with disbelief by some. In fact, Rick Hasen, a liberal law professor at Loyola who runs the popular Election Law Blog , a website concentrating on voting and election developments, expressed his skepticism “of such anonymous claims.” Well, those claims have proven all too real to former Republican congressional candidate Tan Nguyen, who ran for office in the 47th Congressional District of California in 2006 against incumbent...

September 30, 2008 The Honorable Nancy Pelosi Speaker United States House of Representatives Washington, DC 20515 The Honorable John Boehner Minority Leader United States House of Representatives Washington, DC 20515 Dear Speaker Pelosi and Minority Leader Boehner: The undersigned civil rights groups write to urge Congress to provide meaningful relief to distressed homeowners in your consideration of any economic recovery package. The initial failure to pass urgently needed relief provides an essential opportunity to add provisions that will ensure Americans of the safety and protection of their homes. Without the below provisions, our neighborhoods and communities will be forced to...

The Third Annual Latino Congresso started today at the Bonaventure Hotel.. John McCain and Barak Obama was originally listed as speaker, then "invited" and in the end their names were not on the final program at all. Spanish Media was there, as was KTLA and the Associated Press. The event opened with the leaders of the various groups outlining their agendas. The two main issues were Latino Voter Registration and Immigration. The have committed Five Million Dollars to getting Latinos registered to vote for the presidential election. The speakers seldom used the term "Latino" constantly referring to "our community, our...

The two presidential candidates will discuss matters of interest for the latin american community in this country. The Angeles.- The two main presidential candidates, Republican John McCain and Democrat Barack Obama, will be the guests of honor at the third Latin American National Congress, that will be carried out on July 18 and 19 in Los Angeles. The organizers confirmed the participation of the two politicians in the event, that will be performed in an exclusive hotel in Downtown Los Angeles, where it is expected that more than 300 organizations of 20 cities will attend. On the first day, McCain...

As if Katie Couric didn't already have enough problems. Weighed down by record-low ratings at the anchor desk of "CBS Evening News," and by reports suggesting she will leave that post two years before her multimillion-dollar contract expires, Couric now has civil rights groups — mostly Hispanic — on her back. And for good reason.

National immigrant rights groups are blasting Nebraska Attorney General Jon Bruning's stance against giving legal aid to illegal immigrants and are laying the groundwork for a possible lawsuit. The Mexican American Legal Defense Fund says it is investigating the issue but stopped short of saying that it would definitely try to sue Bruning.Raul Gonzalez with the National Council of La Raza, a Hispanic rights group, called Bruning's position "legal gymnastics" and that "taxpayers should understand they're going to pay for his politicking," because it will likely be challenged in court.Bruning cites a section of the 1996 national welfare reform act...

WASHINGTON — In a response to anti-immigrant sentiment and an increase in hate crimes against Latinos, a Hispanic rights group launched an effort Thursday to debunk myths espoused by media talk shows and political campaigns. The Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund unveiled the "Truth in Immigration" campaign to rebut legal and factual inaccuracies about immigrants, particularly Latinos, in the United States. "Right now the airwaves are dominated by a few that speak very negatively and falsely about immigrants and immigration," said John Trasviña, MALDEF president and general counsel. Trasviña said the Web site — www.truthinimmigration.org, which will be...

Falls Church, Virginia- Peter Flaherty, President of the National Legal and Policy Center (NLPC), today announced that the group has filed a shareholder proposal for consideration by Anheuser-Busch shareholders. The proposal asks the company to disclose its charitable contributions, and provide a rationale for each, especially for “controversial” grantees, such as the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF). The supporting statement notes that the company has been MALDEF’s largest corporate supporter in recent years, and states: “MALDEF favors the issuance of driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants, and sued the state of Virginia to allow illegal immigrants to attend...

The Town of Herndon announced yesterday that it would close its 21-month-old day-laborer center next week instead of complying with a judge's ruling that the site must be open to all residents, including those who might be illegal immigrants. The decision to close the site, which became a flash point in the national debate over immigration, was reached late Tuesday by Mayor Stephen J. DeBenedittis and the six-member Town Council after a 2 1/2 -hour closed-door session. It brings the western Fairfax community virtually full circle in its attempts to regulate -- critics say drive out -- its large population...

PROJECT: COUNTERINTELLIGENCE SUBJECT: ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION / RESPONSE ON THE U.S. LOCAL LEVEL FILE: OPPOSITION RESEARCH TRANSLATION: SPANISH to ENGLISH (w/BABELFISH) Original Spanish Title: ("Se Dificulta Defensa Pro Inmigrante /Organizaciones Evalúan Estrategias Ante El Avance de Iniciativas Contra Los Indocumentados") TEXT: 2007, The Chicago La Raza, Inc. Published 08-23-2007 Organizations Try to Adopt New Strategies in The Face of Growing Local Initiatives in USA Aimed Against Illegal Aliens ("Undocumented"– [sic]) WASHINGTON, D.C. Anti-illegal alien measures are proliferating coast-to-coast in the United States. Adding to that the new federal administration initiatives, pro-immigrant groups are up against he wall, so that there...

WASHINGTON, D.C. - - Groups such as the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education (MALDEF) is analyzing the legal mechanisms which are starting to occur, as the consequence of the measures by the federal government, in their fight against undocumented (sic) immigration. Of the 26 administrative initiatives that the federal government plans to perhaps implement the one which creates the biggest challenges will be the dismissal of employees whose names and numbers of Social Security Cards do not match.

Mexico WASHINGTON – A Hispanic rights group is urging Senate lawmakers to kill an amendment to an immigration reform bill that would require undocumented immigrants to return home within two years to apply for permanent residency. The amendment, by Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, is one of several that the Senate is expected to consider when the stalled immigration reform bill returns to the floor, as early as this week. John Trasvina, president of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, said Hutchison's amendment and three others would prohibit undocumented immigrants in this country illegally from seeking legal status and...

When Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) declared last week that unnamed "stakeholders" would decide whether Congress overhauls immigration law this year, Latino organizations in Washington understood exactly what he meant. After laboring in obscurity for decades, groups such as the National Council of La Raza, the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, and the National Immigration Forum are virtually being granted veto power over perhaps the biggest domestic issue coming before Congress this year. Organizations that represent what is now the nation's largest minority group are beginning to achieve power commensurate with their numbers. "There's a real sense that...

A federal appeals court on Friday rejected an attempt to halt enforcement of Arizona's first-in-the-nation requirement that all residents prove they are U.S. citizens when they first register to vote. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a trial judge's refusal last year to block the requirement while a legal challenge awaits trial in federal court in Phoenix. "Now we know we get to enforce the law while the lawsuit is pending," state Solicitor General Mary O'Grady said. .... "We are confident with a full record that the court will rule in our favor," said Carlos Becerra of the...

Two civil rights groups filed a lawsuit Tuesday challenging a suburb's new law that outlaws renting to illegal immigrants, alleging the ordinance violates federal law and forces landlords to act as immigration officers. The American Civil Liberties Union and the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund filed the suit on behalf of Farmers Branch residents and landlords. The law, along with a measure that made English the official language of the city, was passed in November and is scheduled to go into effect Jan. 12. The lawsuit claims the ordinance is so poorly drafted that it excludes even legal...

PHOENIX (Reuters) - A Nevada town passed a law this week making it illegal to fly a foreign nation's flag by itself, the latest swipe by a U.S. community at illegal immigrants. The town council of Pahrump, which lies in the Mojave Desert west of Las Vegas, voted 3-2 on Tuesday to make flying any foreign flag above the U.S. flag or alone an offense punishable by a $50 fine and 30 hours' community service. The meeting also pushed through measures to deny services to illegal immigrants and make English the official language in Pahrump, a commuter town of 40,000...

NEWS RELEASE CALIFORNIA SECRETARY OF STATE Bruce McPherson FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Wednesday, October 25, 2006 California Secretary of State Bruce McPherson and Major Latino Organizations Send Official Election Letter Refuting Orange County Intimidation LetterLetter sent to all 14,000 recipients of previous letter SACRAMENTO, CA - Secretary of State Bruce McPherson announced today that his office and Latino organizations sent an official election information letter to all of the recipients of the voter intimidation letter sent to 14,000 voters last week. The official election information letter, in English and Spanish, was mailed by the Secretary of State’s Office in collaboration with...

This is a follow-up to the story of Hispanics in Orange County having received a supposed voter suppression letter. In this post I'm going to: present evidence that the letter was sent by an illegal immigration supporter...discuss how Arnold Schwarzenegger has been politically emasculated and how his handlers don't have the U.S.'s best interests at heart...illustrate a PIIPP that the AP has fashioned from the story (no, really)...and, discuss those hacks who promulgated this story and who have shown that - even with what we know now - they have little journalistic integrity and that their future reports should not...

SANTA ANA, Calif. - The state attorney general's office is investigating a letter received by some Southern California Hispanics that says it is a crime for immigrants to vote and tells them they could be jailed or deported if they go to the polls next month. "It's a very malicious and degrading letter. It's to pull Latinos down and make them afraid," said Benny Diaz, who is running for City Council in Garden Grove. He said his wife and five other people he knows had received the letter. The letter, written in Spanish, tells recipients: "You are advised that if...

EL MONTE Maria Valdez didn't consider herself an environmentalist when she pressed this city east of Los Angeles to buy land ringed with factories and railroad tracks for a new neighborhood park. The trash lot is now on its way to becoming a green oasis with a butterfly sanctuary and community garden and Valdez is undergoing a transformation of her own. Next month she will be sworn in as president of the El Monte chapter of Mujeres de la Tierra, a two-year-old environmental group that caters to Hispanic immigrants and translates as "Women of the Earth." "When you get involved...

Keep Arkansas Legal, a new immigration reform group in the Central Arkansas area, will meet at the Roosevelt Thompson Libray from 3:00pm-6:00pm Saturday October 7th (Terry Library was booked). We will discuss what to do for the election and the upcoming legistlative session. We will then have a general discussion about illegal immigration. address: Roosevelt Thompson Library 38 Rahling Circle Little Rock, AR 72223 You can go to this link and type the address for a map http://maps.yahoo.com/" We also have a volunteer opportunity. The Lagrone campaign has given a neighborhood in Chenal called The Village to do door to...

LOS ANGELES Circulating recall petitions in languages other than English is not necessary, a federal appeals court ruled in a local school board case Tuesday. The 11-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned an earlier decision by a three-judge panel that found the petitions must be translated into other languages. "The expense and trouble of fulfilling the translation requirements are likely to deter proponents who otherwise would launch petitions," the opinion stated. A lawsuit challenging the legality of a 2003 election that resulted in the recall of Santa Ana Unified School District trustee Native Lopez was...

LOS ANGELES – Immigrants Without Borders is an Arizona-based assistance organization. It doesn't have the multimillion-dollar funding of national Latino organizations, nor does it have their fame. But this regional group has something the others don't: the ability to mobilize immigrants, to organize marches like the ones seen in the past few months and a long list of community contacts. Bringing these two sides together and the development of a long-term social and economic strategy for Latinos are among the goals of the National Latino Congress. Some 1,300 leaders and activists from across the nation are attending the event, which...

A new book by David Horowitz and Richard Poe has enraged the Left and alarmed many conservatives. It exposes the machinations of a radical clique working at the highest levels of government and finance to undermine American power. That book is The Shadow Party: How George Soros, Hillary Clinton and Sixties Radicals Seized Control of the Democratic Party. It hit the New York Times bestseller list in its first week in print. Here to tell us about The Shadow Partyis co-author Richard Poe, our esteemed colleague at the David Horowitz Freedom Center, where he serves as director of research. Mr....

ALLENTOWN, Pa. (AP) -- Hispanic activists and the American Civil Liberties Union sued the city of Hazleton yesterday over one of the toughest crackdowns on illegal aliens by a U.S. city. Hazleton, with a population of about 31,000 and located 80 miles from Philadelphia, voted last month to fine landlords $1,000 for renting to illegal aliens, deny business permits to companies that give them jobs and make English the city's official language. The Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund said the lawsuit is the first in the nation against a city that passed an ordinance against illegal immigration. The...

Hispanics helped, Travis County still split under first two plans WASHINGTON — The first proposals to redraw Texas' congressional map and fix Latino voting rights violations would create up to seven Latino-majority districts in the state — but leave Travis County split between three members of Congress. The two maps are being proposed by the League of United Latin American Citizens, or LULAC, and are the first of several proposals expected to be submitted to the Texas Legislative Council by Friday. The new maps come in response to a Supreme Court ruling in June that found the state's 2003-Republican drawn...

April 10, 2003 The Honorable Chris Cannon 118 Cannon House Office Building Washington, D.C. 20515 The Honorable Howard Berman 2221 Rayburn House Office Building Washington, D.C. 20515 The Honorable Lucille Roybal-Allard 2330 Rayburn House Office Building Washington, D.C. 20515 Dear Congressman Cannon, Congressman Berman, and Congresswoman Roybal-Allard: Representing a broad alliance of educators, businesses, labor groups, civil rights organizations, faith-based groups, children and youth groups, and various community-based organizations from across the country, we write to express our strong support for the Student Adjustment Act.You recently reintroduced this important legislation to address the federal barriers to education and work confronted...

Federal challenges to English-only initiative petitions are roiling election officials across the state and have thrown into doubt a handful of citizen-spawned ballot issues. The question is whether petitions circulated for signatures to qualify initiatives and referendums for the ballot must be translated for voters who speak another language. California began providing Spanish-language ballots statewide in 2002, and local jurisdictions also provide multilingual election materials. But petitions, which are written by ordinary people hoping to change laws from the grass-roots level, are often available in English only. Federal judges have disagreed on the question, resulting in disruptions to elections in...