Posted on 02/03/2005 9:25:35 AM PST by kjfpolitical
WASHINGTON - Florida Sen. Mel Martinez, the first Cuban-American elected to the U.S. Senate, on Wednesday apparently marked another first: delivering the first Spanish speech on the Senate floor.
Martinez, a Republican from Orlando, was speaking in favor of President Bush's nomination of White House counsel Alberto Gonzales as the new U.S. attorney general. Gonzales, a Mexican-American, would be the first Hispanic to hold that post.
After praising Gonzales in English as a qualified public servant and a role model for Hispanic-Americans, Martinez switched to Spanish and addressed all "those who came to America to create a better life."
"Judge Gonzales is one of us," he said in Spanish. "He represents all of our hopes and dreams for our children. Let us acknowledge the importance of this moment, for especially our youth.
"We cannot allow petty politicking to deny us this moment that fills us all with such pride."
It was the new senator's first floor speech since he was sworn in last month, and it came during Republican debate on Gonzales' nomination, to a mostly empty chamber. Martinez sought permission to use Spanish beforehand, then gave the English translation for the Congressional Record.
Senate Majority Whip Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, one of a handful of Republican leaders there to hear it, congratulated Martinez when he finished. "I'm sure that this is not only the first time we've had a bilingual first speech in the Senate ... (but) you could not have picked a more important topic," McConnell said.
The Senate is expected to confirm Gonzales' appointment today, despite opposition from many Senate Democrats who say he once advised the Bush administration that torture may not always be unlawful.
Kerry Feehery, Martinez's press secretary, said the senator used Spanish to underscore the importance of Gonzales' nomination to Hispanic-Americans. "It's a historic moment for the Hispanic community and we shouldn't lose sight of the barriers it's breaking," she said.
While Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, whose wife is from Mexico, and President Bush frequently speak Spanish to connect with Hispanic audiences and potential voters, Martinez's speech appears unprecedented in the Senate.
Associate Senate historian Don Ritchie said the Senate has had several other Hispanic members, "but we don't have anything in our files that indicates that either of them ever used Spanish in their speeches on the floor."
Last year, former U.S. Sen. Tom Daschle, D-S.D., used a Native American language when introducing a bill, and guest chaplains have said prayers in both Chippewa and Sioux, he said. In the 19th century, senators frequently used Latin phrases but never delivered speeches in Latin.
Ritchie said it is difficult to know exactly what has been said over the past 200 years: Remarks delivered in a foreign language generally don't show up in the official proceedings, simply because those who record the floor debates can't transcribe them.
In place of Martinez's Spanish remarks Wednesday, the unofficial transcript says simply, "Speaking in Spanish."
Univision, the Spanish-language TV network, and CNN en Espanol carried the morning speech live, as did C-SPAN. Feehery said she doubts Martinez will give many bilingual speeches on the Senate floor, "but if it's an important issue to the Hispanic-American community, both in Florida and nationwide, he will."
Great post.
"If we are ever going to make any headway in this fight to save our country from decay, we must refuse to let discussion and debate be stifled by these kinds of techniques. We might as well start here."
Bears repeating.
Does it offend you when President Bush speaks spanish in a press conference?
We don't need it all my friend. Just a shift of 10% would be quite good considering hispanics are the fastest growing demographic in this country. I know that's gotta burn ya.
The hispanic vote was 65% for John Kerry. I know that has got to burn ya.
I am not going to play your game. You are a disgusting and vile person.
Not at all. Give me 20% of the black vote and we'll never see another democrat president. You display a stunning ignorance of politics and elections if you think it's important to win at least 50% of a particular ethinic demographic.
You forgot to add 'and right'.
Sure there is. The Rats didn't filibuster because Martinez gave them a taste of what would come! He could probably curse them out and they wouldn't know it!
It doesn't offend me. I see it for the pandering that it is, and therefore I find it disappointing, as I do any supplications to the lie of "multiculturalism".
No. I forgot to add pedantic and annoying.
Inserting three sentences in Spanish in an otherwise all-English speech is "making a speech in a foreign language?
Sacre bleu!
Methinks you protesteth too much.
Yeah, but you will have a greater communication problem when you have a guy from Brooklyn trying to communicate a with a Southerner. :-)
Actually Tex, Bush's showing also improved dramatically among Hispanic Protestants, 63 percent of whom supported him in 2004 — a 31 percent gain over 2000. http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=519&ncid=519&e=3&u=/ap/20050203/ap_on_re_us/religion_poll
Actually Tex, Bush's showing also improved dramatically among Hispanic Protestants, 63 percent of whom supported him in 2004 — a 31 percent gain over 2000. (sorry, forgot the space)
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=519&ncid=519&e=3&u=/ap/20050203/ap_on_re_us/religion_poll
Equating the Cuban American vote with the "Hispanic" vote is analogous with equating the Jesse Jackson vote with the "English as a first language in 1865" vote.
Senator Martinez is from the Cuban American community that gave George W. Bush 78% of its vote in 2000.
Not even Texas can claim that degree of Republican loyalty.
If it were not for the Cuban American community's tradition of overwhelming support for the Republican Party, Al Gore would have carried Florida's Electoral votes in 2000 and Al Gore would have been President of the United States on 11 September 2000.
Think about the implications of that.
Show me any other group ethnic group that can deliver a 78% vote for a Republican candidate.
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Cuban American Vote Was Underestimated
Even before the world's attention turned to ballot recounts, hanging chads and courtroom dramas, Florida's 2000 presidential election campaign fell victim to a series of miscalls.
Five major television news networks relied on exit poll data from the Voter News Service, a respectable national polling organization used by news agencies for years, and mistakenly declared Al Gore the winner of the Sunshine State by early evening on Election Night.
Now, several political analysts have concluded that VNS underestimated Florida's Cuban Americans, who overwhelmingly voted Republican in response to the outcome of the Elián González case.
Sergio Bendixen, president of Hispanic Trends, our sister polling and consulting firm, said CNN relied on VNS figures and estimated that Cuban Americans make up 2 percent of Florida's Hispanic turnout. But other experts said Cubans actually make up a larger chunk of Florida's electorate.
"VNS got it wrong," Florida International University political scientist Darío Moreno said. "Cubans make up 8 percent of the Florida vote."
"Just by underestimating the Cuban American vote, the VNS poll was off by about 6 points," said Bendixen, who did analysis for CNN on Election Night.
"The minute we saw the Florida numbers we knew they were wrong." Bendixen points out that 2 percent of 6 million—the total number of voters in Florida—is only 120,000. "Yet there are easily 300,000 Cuban voters in Miami-Dade alone."
As a result of the miscalculation, VNS also reported that Bush won 49 percent of Florida's Hispanic vote to Gore's 48 percent, Moreno said.
Moreno's own analysis found that Bush won 61 percent of the state's Hispanic vote to Gore's 39 percent.
Both he and Bendixen agreed that the former Texas governor got about 78 percent of Florida's Cuban American vote.
Cubans make up the third largest Hispanic group in the United States, behind Mexicans and Puerto Ricans. But, unlike most other Hispanics, a majority of Cubans has traditionally voted Republican—due largely to the GOP's strong stance against Cuban dictator Fidel Castro.
Some Cubans broke the tradition in 1996 when 40 percent re-elected President Clinton. VNS spokeswoman Lee C. Shapiro said the polling group stands by its estimates, although their margin of error may have been higher than usual.
"We're pretty comfortable with the estimate, even though it was probably on the low side because of the way the population is clustered," she said, adding that it was the first time VNS separated Cuban Americans from the state's overall Hispanic population, estimated at 11 percent.
I think you are talking about Cameron County, Tx. Yes, Bush did capture that county. The Bishop of the Catholic Church ran half page ads regarding abortion in the Brownsville, Harlington, and McAllen newspapers approximately 2 to 3 weeks prior to the election. Cameron County went for Bush and Hildalgo County, the next county over went for Kerry. IIRC, no other republican was elected in either of these counties as abortion was not the issue. All the other Democrats were elected. These people are not republicans. They voted on "one issue" abortion.
I have to agree with you. It is the Cuban vote that is republican not the Mexican vote.
If I am not mistaken, the United States of America has no official language.
If you read the article, I believe it was a national poll, not specific to Texas.
There is no requirement that I know of that senators speak in English on the senate floor. They have a right to speak in any language they want, and for some, I would prefer that the language they speak was something other than English, each and every time they speak. The first amendment is precious. Defend it.
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