[CTPP] Census News Brief

[Ed Christopher]

Editor's note:  This week's Census News Brief will be issued in two 
parts.  The first will summarize recent activities related to the FY2010 
Commerce appropriations bill and the pending Vitter-Bennett amendment. 
The second will focus on operational updates, congressional oversight, 
and stakeholder activities.

SENATE STALLED ON FY2010 COMMERCE SPENDING BILL:
* CENSUS STAKEHOLDERS RAMP UP OPPOSITION TO VITTER AMENDMENT
* VITTER SAYS HE'LL MODIFY PROPOSAL TO FOCUS ON CITIZENSHIP, AS NEW 
ANALYSIS SHOWS EXCLUDING ONLY UNDOCUMENTED WOULD NOT SAVE STATE'S 7th SEAT
* CONSERVATIVE GROUPS BACK NEW QUESTION ON IMMIGRATION STATUS
* PROPOSAL SPLITS LOUISIANA'S CONGRESSIONAL DELEGATION
* CONGRESS EXTENDS STOP-GAP SPENDING BILL THROUGH DEC. 18

Census stakeholder organizations stepped up their opposition to a 
proposal by Senators David Vitter (R-LA) and Robert Bennett (R-UT) to 
add new questions to the 2010 census on citizenship and immigration 
status, as Senate action on the Fiscal Year 2010 Commerce, Justice, and 
Science Appropriations bill (H.R. 2847) stalled for another week.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's first attempt to end debate on the 
bill (called a 'cloture vote,' which requires 60 ayes) failed by three 
votes, with three Democratic senators absent.  If a second attempt at 
cloture is successful, the Senate Parliamentarian would rule the 
Vitter-Bennett amendment out of order ("non-germane"), according to 
Republican staff quoted in several news articles.  If the cloture vote 
fails, Sen. Vitter said he will modify the initial proposal to require a 
new question only on citizenship.  Sen. Reid told Latino journalists 
during an October 29 news tele-conference that he was stalling further 
action on the Vitter amendment, comparing the proposed new census 
questions to vote suppression efforts aimed at African Americans, 
according to a report on the press conference posted on Nuestra Voice 
(http://nuestravoice.com/?p=4907).

A coalition of civil rights and progressive advocacy groups held a press 
conference on October 20 to discuss their opposition to the 
Vitter-Bennett amendment.  Wade Henderson, President of the Leadership 
Conference on Civil Rights, described an accurate and inclusive census 
as "a civil rights imperative."  Pointing to the original apportionment 
clause's treatment of slaves, Mr. Henderson said the Vitter amendment 
"echoes a shameful period when the census counted most African Americans 
as three-fifths of a person."  Simon Rosenberg, President of NDN, a 
"progressive think tank and advocacy organization," questioned the 
amendment's motives and consequences, saying, "If enacted the Amendment 
would almost certainly disrupt an orderly census count next year, 
eventually found to be unconstitutional, all the while starting a highly 
divisive conversation about race, the Civil War and the 14th Amendment 
in the very first year of America's very first African-American 
President."  Terry A, representing the Asian American Justice Center, a 
member of the Census Bureau's 2010 Census Advisory Committee, said 
asking about legal status is "unnecessarily intrusive" and would 
heighten already existing skepticism about the confidentiality and 
privacy of census responses.

Other groups participating in the press event included NALEO, Hispanic 
National Bar Association, MALDEF, People for the American Way, LULAC, 
NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund, Demos, and Center for American 
Progress.

Two days later, members of the Congressional Tri-Caucus led a group of 
lawmakers discussing "the damaging ramifications of the Vitter-Bennett 
amendment to the successful implementation of the 2010 census." 
Congressional Hispanic Caucus (CHC) Chairwoman Nydia Velazquez (D-NY) 
noted that "presidents from both parties have repeatedly upheld the 
importance of counting each and every person residing in the United 
States," while CHC 1st Vice-Chair Charles Gonzalez (D-TX) said the 
census should not be used as "a political football."  Congressional 
Black Caucus Chairwoman Barbara Lee (D-CA) highlighted the use of census 
data to allocate federal program funds and said, "Scare tactics will 
only serve to skew the Census data, driving people to not participate." 
  Rep. Mike Honda (D-CA), chairman of the Congressional Asian Pacific 
American Caucus and a member of the House appropriations subcommittee 
that funds the Census Bureau, called the Vitter amendment "irresponsible 
and counterproductive."  Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-MD), who also spoke at the 
press conference, said, "The census doesn't exist to score political 
points - it exists to give us an accurate picture of our country." 
"Immigrants who fear being deported, along with their families and 
friends, are much more likely to avoid the census" if the form included 
a citizenship question, the House Majority Leader concluded.

Conservative groups urge support for Vitter proposal:  Countering 
opposition to the Vitter-Bennett amendment, the Eagle Forum called for 
support of the amendment "to crack down on the Obama Administration's 
handling of the 2010 census" and urged its members to "make sure your 
Senators feel the pressure!"  "[T]he census is the only way to get an 
accurate count of how many illegal aliens are residing in the United 
States," the self-described leader of "the pro-family movement" said in 
an October 21 action alert.  "By counting citizens and non-citizens 
alike for congressional reapportionment purposes, the federal government 
is doing a massive disservice to those states with lower illegal 
immigrant populations."

The Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) also issued an 
action alert in support of the amendment, suggesting that adding new 
questions to the census form would "lay the groundwork for reforming how 
Congressional seats are apportioned by disregarding illegal aliens and 
other non-citizens so that they are no longer able to affect the outcome 
of U.S. elections."  FAIR, which describes itself as "a member 
organization of concerned citizens" that seeks, in part, to "stop 
illegal immigration and promote immigration levels consistent with the 
national interest," was a member of the Commerce Department's Decennial 
Census Advisory Committee in the early 1990s.  The group filed an 
unsuccessful lawsuit before the 1980 census, FAIR v. Klutznick (486 
F.Supp. 564, D.D.C. 1980), to exclude undocumented residents from the 
census apportionment counts; the case was dismissed for lack of 
standing.  FAIR joined dozens of members of Congress in a similarly 
unsuccessful legal challenge in 1988 (Ridge v. Verity, 715 F.Supp. 1308, 
W.D. Penn. 1989).

Vitter says he will modify amendment to focus on citizenship:  Sen. 
Vitter told his colleagues and reiterated in press statements over the 
past two weeks that he intends to modify his original proposal, which 
requires the Census Bureau to ask respondents about their citizenship 
and immigration status, to include a new question on citizenship only. 
(The original Vitter-Bennett amendment is still pending before the 
Senate and cannot be modified until the chamber begins consideration of 
the proposal.)  Sen. Bennett, the amendment's other sponsor, has not 
said publicly if he supports his colleague's effort to change their 
initial proposal, and his position is not clear from earlier statements 
describing the amendment.  The Utah senator sponsored legislation (S. 
1688) to require questions on citizenship and legal status in the 
decennial census, but he has said he believes political representation 
should be based on the "number of legal residents of the United States" 
(http://bennett.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?p=PressReleases&ContentRecord_id=81a95f55-275e-4228-8081-f5d0181821e4&ContentType_id=1faead15-454a-4bbc-b5a7-4cb518dd4b7c).

A new analysis for The New York Times by Dr. Andrew Beveridge, a 
sociology professor at City of University of New York's Queens College, 
examined the potential effects of excluding all non-citizens and only 
undocumented residents from the state population totals used for 
congressional apportionment.  The study projects that Louisiana would 
retain its current seven congressional seats only if all non-citizens 
were excluded from the apportionment base.  (The New York Times reported 
on the analysis in an October 28 print-edition article; the Times is a 
sponsor of Social Explorer, a web-based application that features census 
data for demographic comparisons and analyses.  Dr. Beveridge leads the 
Social Explorer team and is a consultant to the Times.)

The decennial census has always counted all people, regardless of their 
immigration status, living in the United States on Census Day, for 
purposes of apportionment.  The Constitution calls for an enumeration of 
"the whole number of persons in each State."  The original Article I 
political compromise between northern and southern states, to count 
slaves as three-fifths of a person for the purpose of allocating seats 
in the House of Representatives, was eliminated by the Fourteenth 
Amendment in 1868.  (Both constitutional apportionment provisions 
exclude "Indians not taxed" from the political base.)

Louisiana delegation splits on support for Vitter:  Six of Louisiana's 
seven House members joined Sen. Vitter in writing to the state's senior 
senator, Mary Landrieu (D), and Sen. Reid, urging them to allow a vote 
on Sen. Vitter's proposal.  "This is both a crucial national issue and 
one that very directly impacts Louisiana," the lawmakers wrote on 
October 27.  They cited an analysis by Elliott Stonecipher, who they 
described as a "demographer," and Louisiana State University law 
professor John Baker, projecting that the state would not lose a 
congressional district following the 2010 census if the state population 
totals used for apportionment included only citizens.  Rep. Ahn "Joseph" 
Cao (R), whose district includes New Orleans, did not sign the letter.

Sen. Landrieu responded in a letter to Sen. Vitter, saying the amendment 
would "only do harm to our country by delaying the Census at [a] cost of 
approximately $1 billion to our already beleaguered taxpayers and to our 
state by stalling important projects," such as law enforcement grants 
based on census data.  She noted that the Constitution requires a count 
of all "persons" for apportionment purposes and that it would take a 
constitutional amendment to change that directive.  Sen. Landrieu also 
addressed the claim that excluding undocumented immigrants would save 
the state from losing a congressional seat.  "[A]ny demographer worth 
his salt (which would not be Elliott Stonecipher) would tell you that 
Louisiana's probable loss of a seat would occur even if there was not 
one illegal immigrant in the United States," the senator wrote.

Louisiana was one of only two states to lose population over the past 
decade.  Before Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast in 2005, 
apportionment projections showed the state retaining its full House 
delegation after the 2010 census.  An August Wall Street Journal op-ed, 
authored by Mr. Stonecipher and Mr. Baker, suggesting that it is 
unconstitutional to include undocumented immigrants in the apportionment 
calculation, identified Mr. Stonecipher as a Louisiana pollster and 
demographic analyst, not a demographer.  The authors alternated in their 
editorial between citing analyses that exclude only "illegal residents" 
and ones that exclude all non-citizens; they asserted at the start that 
apportionment should be based on a count of citizens and legal, 
permanent residents.  (The op-ed is available at 
http://online.wsj.com/articl/SB10001424052970204908604574332950796281832.html.)

House member offers counter-proposal to Vitter:  Rep. Joe Baca (D-CA) 
introduced legislation (H.R. 3855) to prohibit the Census Bureau from 
asking about citizenship or immigration status in the decennial census. 
  The "Every Person Counts Act" would require the tabulation of the 
"total number of persons in each State" for apportionment purposes.  The 
bill, with 31 cosponsors, was referred to the Committee on Oversight and 
Government Reform.

In a statement, Rep. Baca said the Vitter amendment "clearly violates 
the spirit of the Constitution" and "would cost our nation millions of 
dollars during this time of economic duress."  The congressman said he 
introduced his measure "in direct response" to Sen. Vitter's proposal.

Temporary 2010 funding bill extended through mid-December:  With only 
four of 12 regular appropriations bills signed into law for the fiscal 
year that started October 1, 2009, Congress passed a second Continuing 
Funding Resolution to keep federal agencies running through December 18. 
  The first stop-gap bill expired on October 31.  While most programs 
must continue operating at Fiscal Year 2009 funding levels, Congress 
carved out an exception for the Census Bureau, which received $7.066 
billion to continue final preparations for the 2010 census.  The FY2009 
funding for the 2010 census was less than half that amount; limiting the 
agency to spending at the lower level, even for a couple of months, 
would have crippled major operations this fall, including Local Census 
Office openings, recruitment and hiring, and final paid media buys, 
leading up to the late January enumeration start in remote Alaskan villages.
QUICK LINKS:

Visit the Census Project web site for previous Census News Briefs, fact 
sheets, and a weekly blog in support of an accurate 2010 census:

The Census Project

NEW THIS WEEK!  Updated analysis of federal program allocations, based 
in whole or in part on census data, for Fiscal Year 2008.  Prepared by 
the Brookings Institution, Washington, D.C.  Click on "Fact Sheets" for 
state-by-state, program (national), and program function (national) tables.

Census News Briefs are prepared by Terri Ann Lowenthal, an independent 
legislative and policy consultant specializing in the census and federal 
statistics.  All views expressed in the News Briefs are solely those of 
the author.  Please direct questions about the information in this News 
Brief to Ms. Lowenthal at TerriAnn2K at aol.com.  Please feel free to 
circulate this document to other interested individuals and 
organizations.  Ms. Lowenthal is a consultant to the nonpartisan Census 
Project, organized by the Communications Consortium Media Center in 
Washington, DC.  Previous Census News Briefs are posted at 
www.thecensusproject.org.
-- 
Ed Christopher
708-283-3534 (V)
708-574-8131 (cell)

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