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What did the US Census Count?                                                                                    

Posted at: Apr/04/2011 : Posted by: Mel

Related Category: Politics & Gov,

In 2010 under the direction of congress a census was conducted in America. This is an event that recurs every 10 years as described in the U.S. Constitution. This is specified in Article-1, Section 2 of the Constitution as written in 1790. The census is further defined in the fourteenth Amendment which was ratified in 1868. The U.S. census as inserted into the constitution in 1790 was not a new concept, even then. Censuses had been used in the past to determine taxation or conscription. In both of these examples the census data was used by the existing government to exert power over the governed. The founders of our country had a bold and ambitious plan to empower the people over their new government. To this end, a census would be used to count every person living in the newly created United States of America, and to use that count to determine and ensure equal representation in the Congress.

To ensure this new idea of equal representation was maintained it (the census) was prominently placed in our Constitution marked a turning point in world history. They accomplished that goal in 1790 and our country has every 10 years since then had a national census. In 1954, Congress codified earlier census acts and all other statutes authorizing the decennial census as Title 13, U.S. Code. Title 13, U.S. Code, does not specify which subjects or questions are to be included in the decennial census. However, it does require the Census Bureau to notify Congress of general census subjects to be addressed 3 years before the decennial census and the actual questions to be asked 2 years before the decennial census.

A friend of mine picked up a little part-time work as a census worker for the 2010 census and here is the list of questions she was trained to ask when banging on doors.

1.) How many people were living or staying in this house, apartment, or mobile home on April 1, 2010?
2.) Were there any additional people staying here April 1, 2010 that you did not include in Question 1?
3.) Is this house, apartment, or mobile home: owned with mortgage, owned without mortgage, rented, occupied without rent?
4.) What is your telephone number?
5.) Please provide information for each person living here. Start with a person here who owns or rents this house, apartment, or mobile home. If the owner or renter lives somewhere else, start with any adult living here. This will be Person 1. What is Person 1's name?
6.) What is Person 1's sex?
7.) What is Person 1's age and Date of Birth?
8.) Is Person 1 of Hispanic, Latino or Spanish origin?
9.) What is Person 1's race?
10.) Does Person 1 sometimes live or stay somewhere else?

It is interesting to note that there are African-Americans, Cuban-Americans, Asian-Americans, but no Euro-Americans. There is a cultural question here that needs to be looked into as some point, do we count the Polish, Swiss and Georgian differently, or do they simply not seek the ethnic and hyphenated designation?

Back to the census: One of the things that most annoys me is a job half done, the only thing worse is a job half done by design. Did you notice that the census asked your national origin, but not your nationality or citizenship? The real concern out of all of this is on matters of money and equal representation.

Illegal immigrants - there are over 12 million of them -- living and often working in the United States, and they are counted in the decennial U.S. census. Should they be? As currently required by law, the U.S. Census Bureau attempts to count "all persons" in the U.S. living in residential structures, including prisons, dormitories and similar group quarters in the official decennial census. The persons to be counted in the census include citizens, legal immigrants, non-citizen long-term visitors and illegal (or undocumented) immigrants.

Not counting illegal aliens costs cities and states federal money, resulting in a reduction of services to all residents. This happens becuse the census count is used by Congress in deciding how to distribute more than $400 billion annually to state, local and tribal governments. The formula is simple: the greater the population your state or city reports, the more federal money it might get for these various approved services and programs.

Remember, when a local service like police, fire and emergency medical treatment responds to an emergency or event, they don’t first ask for proof of citizenship and it would not be practical for them to do so. In some states, like California, illegal immigrants attend public schools as well. In 2004, the Federation for American Immigration Reform estimated the cost to California cities for education, health care and incarceration of illegal immigrants was approximately $10.5 billion per year. According to a study performed by Price-Waterhouse-Coopers released by the U.S. Census Monitoring Board, a total of 122,980 people went uncounted in Georgia during the 2000 census. As a result, the state lost out on some $208.8 million in federal funding through 2012, a loss of about $1,697 per uncounted person. So there is obviously some good reasons to count “everyone”, because “everyone” gets to benefit from the allocation of public services partially funded by federal grants including the neighbors of the illegal alliens whose communities benefit.

Unfortunately, a job half done is still only a half done job. The counting of all residents including illegal immigrants in the census undermines the fundamental principal of the American representative democracy that every voter has an equal voice. Through the census-based process of apportionment, states with a larger number of residents in the census will gain representation in the U.S. House of Representatives. Unfortunately, not all those counted in the census are citizens, but under the present process they potentially sway the allocation of representation away from legitimate citizen voters in states with a small illegal immigrant presence. If you are a really into the political details, you know that the U.S. Presidency is actually determined by the “electoral college system.” As the census data is currently used with the inclusion of illegal immigrants, it can even result in an inflated population that sways the Electoral College system results.

In short, including illegal immigrants in the census count will unjustly bestow additional political power in states where lax enforcement of immigration laws, favorable work opportunities, and other factors attract large populations of illegal aliens, such as California, Texas and other mostly southwestern states. I heard one person state that this was a Democratic plot to gain greater influence over national politics. I am not a conspiracy buff so that notion simply does not work for me.

It would not be difficult to make the argument that the census as prescribed in the Constitution is being used in a manner that is “anti-Constitutional.” If illegal aliens are counted in California, then California will be sure to get additional seats in Congress despite the fact that many actual citizens have been leaving California over the past 10 years for skilled job opportunities in other states. This same argument is true of other states with large numbers of illegal immigrants. By the same token, other states in the north and north east such as Michigan and Pennsylvania with relatively few immigrants are in danger of losing representation since the House of Representatives is fixed at 435 Representatives as a result of the Reapportionment Act of 1929.

The Census asked every conceivable question but the obvious one: Are you a citizen? I know, many if not most illegal’s are so to speak in the shadows (it’s that illegal thing), so if they were asked, they would most likely not answer anyway. But, by not asking the citizenship question the census is creating a de facto version of “don’t ask-don’t tell” that is still being used to sway apportionment that is central to our “equal representation” clause. Depending on the study you read there are anywhere from 12-20 million illegal’s in the United States at this time. These same studies estimate that anywhere between 50-90% of these illegals were counted in the 2010 census.

Obviously this means that the allocation of federal money for public safety and service is better distributed, but at the expense of equal representation.

No, I am not saying we should root out every illegal immigrant who is currently in the United States. Most of these people are hard working and well intentioned. Studies have also shown that most are doing work that the rest of those in the United States are unwilling to do despite the rhetoric from various union leaders to the contrary. These shadow workers have become an integral part of the national economy, or at least the sub-economy. We are dependent on them for affordable food prices and discount labor in the general services sector of the economy. Of course, the flip side of this coin is that they are not paying taxes, so the public services they are influencing is reapportionment of by their numbers are also service they are in many cases not paying for.

I am all for welcoming immigrants, registering them like the rest of us, paying them for their labors….and most of all collecting taxes from their labors just like the rest of us. I don’t mind the different cultures; accepting diversity almost always leads to greater strength. There are many who push for the assimilation approach which has been fraught with problems in many western European countries where it has been the program of choice. The United States in its brief history has shifted ethnic influence many times as immigrant waves have come from different corners of the globe.

The Constitution says the purpose of the census is to properly apportion representation in Congress. Our Congressmen represent the “citizens” of their states and districts since they are the only ones who can vote, so I had assumed that the census would be counting only citizens. As you can see, our national policies on immigration and citizenship are no longer aligned with the practices of our decennial census. There are those who also argue that the apathy coefficient negates all this concern. Yes, it is true that only 56% of the voting age population participated in the last presidential election, which means that the current president won the election with only 29% of eligible voters pulling the lever for him, but participating in an election is a choice. While some casually dismiss their vote, I take my franchise very personally. In a similar vein, I am very bothered by a census that is used for two important tasks, but grossly misses the mark on its first and constitutionally mandated goal of ensuring equal representation.

Ultimately, this is how we divvy up seats in the House of Representatives, regardless of how dysfunctional they may or may not be, regardless of how political gerrymandering may be used, the last thing we should be doing is getting equal representation wrong. If you can’t ask the right questions, the value to the census is lost.

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