We tried this ten or so years ago and it fell flat after passage.
I think the tide is turning.
I hope so. It's one of those issues that seems to have flexibility in terms of politics--one could just as easily say those who are against it are racists for claiming non-Americans aren't smart enough to master English, yet the opposition to English-only has fallen apart on the school front of late, so I believe this is an idea whose time has come. Most people don't think it's a bad thing that we can all communicate with each other.
Did Arizona's official English bill almost end up making GORE PRESIDENT?
Will Arizona's NEW official English help end ABORTION??
I kid you not: the judicial politics (should be an oxymoron, but it's not) of this case are staggering.
In 1989, Arizona passed A CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT making English the official language. It was very popular, winning by a 2/3rds vote. The Reconquistadores sued claiming that the constitutional amendment was unconstitutional. I kid you not.
They argued that any Arizona could not pass a law which was contary to the U.S Constitution.
More incredibly, neither the state of Arizona, nor the organization which promoted the bill challenged this bizarre ruling.
A dissident former member of the organization, Bob Park, formed his own organization to challenge it. (His organization is now called ProEnglish - www.proenglish.org.)
So the case eventually went to the U.S. Supreme Court, where it was ruled to be constitutional.
Preposterously, the state of Arizona then moved to attack it's own constitution! A state court ruled that REGARDLESS OF WHAT THE UNITED STATES SUPREME COURT ruled, the state court had jurisdiction to determine whether or not a state law violated the United States Constitution!!!
The case went back to the Supreme Court, which ruled that a state court can determine its own interpretation of the U.S. Constitution for its own purposes. That ruling, Yniguez, was the basis for AL GORE'S CHALLENGE TO HIS FLORIDA LOSS!
Since that loss, several other states have passed laws which were as tough as Arizona, and they have not been found by their own states to violate the US Constitution. This creates a strange legal case:
The basis for Roe-v.-Wade was that the varying state ANTI-ABORTION LAWS created different rights for residents of different states, which amounted to unequal protection. Therefore the United States had the authority to overrule state law and impose a uniform definition of 4th, 10th, and 14th amendment rights. Roe v. Wade is now throughly contradicted by Yniguez.
(Don't expect the Supreme Court to actually address this inconsistency; As the liberals have actually stated, they just shop around for the excuses and precedents to find the laws say what they want them to say.)