(KRT) San Jose – The U.S. Senate voted this week to make English the national language of the United States, a controversial move that has been lauded by the White House but condemned by many immigrant rights groups.

But guess what?

English has been the “official” language of California since 1986, when voters passed Proposition 63.

You’d barely know it.

The Santa Clara County Registrar of Voters prints ballots in English, Spanish, Vietnamese, Chinese and Tagalog. California drivers can take the written license exam in 31 languages, from Amharic, which is spoken in Ethiopia, to Thai. You can view the state’s online Megan’s Law database of registered sex offenders in Portuguese or Punjabi.

“You can’t say, ‘Everyone eat healthy,’ and then stand on the corner passing out cookies,” said Rob Toonkel of U.S. English, a citizens action group that says it is dedicated to preserving the unifying role of the English language in the United States. “California passed an official English bill in 1986 and has spent 20 years going in the opposite direction.”

Proposition 63, which received 73 percent of the vote in 1986, was largely symbolic, sending a message to immigrants that they should learn to speak English if they expected to live in California. The measure directed the state to “preserve, protect and strengthen the English language,” but did not call for any specific action or enforcement. Twenty-six other states have official-English laws on the books.

Scott Walker of San Jose said Friday that he had no idea that the law existed in California. But he wholeheartedly supports it and said he is glad that the Senate finally took action.

“California is too wishy-washy. We have to enforce the law, or we’re going to lose our country’s heritage,” said Walker, an engineer. “If I go to Mexico, I’m expected to speak Spanish. If I go to Italy, I’m supposed to know Italian. It should be the same here.”

A host of federal laws, in particular provisions of the Voting Rights Act that require election information be made available in other languages, trump the state initiative.

“People say that being able to vote in their native language really helps them,” said Elma Rosas, a representative for the Santa Clara County Registrar of Voters. “They can vote independently and don’t have to rely on a relative or friend to translate.”

It’s unclear how such provisions would fare if a national official English law is passed by both houses of Congress. On Thursday, conservatives added language to a Senate immigration reform bill that said no one has a “right, entitlement or claim” to receive bilingual information from the U.S. government. But the Senate also accepted a competing Democratic amendment that establishes English as the “common and unifying language” of the United States — but specifies that it doesn’t “diminish or expand” existing rights to bilingual information.

Advocates of making English an official or national language argue that English fluency is critical to becoming an active U.S. citizen. They think the government needs to spend fewer tax dollars on providing courtroom translators and more on teaching English to non-native speakers.

The current national debate about immigration, as well as the Senate’s action this week, will undoubtedly renew interest in state measures. And the language issue came to the forefront a few weeks ago, when immigrant-rights supporters sang the national anthem in Spanish in demonstrations across the nation, prompting President Bush, among many others, to say it should be sung only in English.

Critics of official English laws worry that even a symbolic gesture will further fuel anti-immigrant sentiment and could intimidate non-English speakers from seeking health care at public hospitals or emergency services.

“People want to learn English, but it does take time. And for older people, it’s really difficult,” said Jackie Maruhashi of the Asian Law Alliance in San Jose.

But supporters say speaking English is the American way.”We’ve always been a melting pot, and a big portion of that was that everyone learned to speak English,” said Ted Costa of People’s Advocate, a taxpayer organization that was active in the Proposition 63 campaign 20 years ago and more recently spearheaded the recall of Gov. Gray Davis.

Costa wishes that Proposition 63 had had more of an effect — but believes it’s an important statement nonetheless. He hopes a stronger federal law might actually require more people to learn and use English. “We feel it should be the common language, so that we can all talk to one another,” he said.

Mercury News wire services contributed to this report. Contact Dana Hull at [email protected] or (408) 920-2706.

Copyright © 2006, San Jose Mercury News, Calif.

Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.