Using the frameworks of critical discourse analysis, representation theory, and legitimization theory, this study examines the political discourse of the campaign for Proposition 227 in California--particularly, the key social representations of languages, their speakers, and the main political actors in the campaign. The analysis examines the campaign's successfully articulated discourse of language that influenced subsequent political campaigns in Arizona, Massachusetts, and Colorado, as well as the 2009 Supreme Court decision in the case of "Horne v. Flores". The article concludes with a call for a new discursive framework for language in education policy that would permit a serious and reasoned public debate about teaching languages in American schools. (Contains 1 footnote.)