Arizona poll row brews

Arizona’s supreme court has ruled that a city council candidate with limited English skills could be kept off the ballot in a predominately Spanish-speaking town on the Mexico border.

The court upheld a lower court ruling that barred Alejandrina Cabrera from running in the 13 March Democratic pri-mary in the town of San Luis.

A Yuma County superior court judge last week disqualified Ms Cabrera, 35, over what he called a “large gap” between her English proficiency and that required to serve as a public official.

The controversy swept San Luis, a sleepy farming town hugging the Arizona-Mexico border, into a national debate over the English language’s importance to American national identity.