See this post and the accompanying AP report:
http://electionlawblog.org/archives/006085.html

I've not seen the language of the Stearns amendment, but it sounds like it may have been to stop the expenditure of federal funds for VRA language assistance. 

Daniel P. Tokaji
Assistant Professor of Law
The Ohio State University
Moritz College of Law
614.292.6566
http://moritzlaw.osu.edu/blogs/tokaji/



----- Original Message -----
From: David Epstein <de11@columbia.edu>
Date: Wednesday, July 5, 2006 11:21 am
Subject: June 28 vote on DOJ funding
> Had anyone else heard about this? Apparently there was a vote last
> week in
> the House on multi-lingual ballots that came during the debate on
> the DOJ's
> funding via the budget process. Even though the amendment failed,
> the vote
> was, I would say, disturbingly close; a shot across the bow on
> this issue.
> > This came out in the Lexington Herald-Reader last Sunday (
> http://www.kentucky.com/mld/kentucky/news/state/14950807.htm):
>
> VOTING RIGHTS ACT: Voting 167 for and 254 against, the House on
> June 28
> refused to strip the 1965 Voting Rights Act of its requirement
> that voting
> officials provide ballot information in multiple languages. The
> amendmentwas offered to the Department of Justice's fiscal 2007
> budget (HR 5672). A
> yes vote backed the amendment.
>
>
> --
>
> **************************************
> David Epstein
> Professor of Political Science
> Columbia University
> New York, NY 10027
> 212-854-7566
> http://www.columbia.edu/~de11
> **************************************
>