By
Bobbi BowmanMore important than how the U.S. Census does the
2010 Census count is who
gets counted.
Last week, Al Tompkins, broadcast and online group leader at The Poynter Institute,
wrote in his Morning Meeting column that the high-tech, hand-held computers U.S. Census field workers were supposed to use to get an accurate count don't work. They'll take the Census the old-fashioned way with pencil and paper.
The question of who is counted is important because the census has always been about power. The founding fathers understood this. This census, which began in 1790, was created to determine how many seats each state would have in the U.S. House of Representatives. The more people a state has, the more representatives it gets.
Once the founding fathers had reached a compromise over big states vs. small states by creating the U.S. Senate and the U.S. House of Representatives, the discussion about who to count started.
The southern states, understanding the census was about power, wanted slaves counted. Slaves were property under the law. They had no rights and no legal standing. But when it came to the census, southern politicians considered them as persons to be counted because doing so meant they would have more power.
Lots about the census has changed throughout the years, as
this August 18, 2007 press release suggests:
"The Census Bureau has not requested that the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency refrain from enforcing immigration laws. While previous Administrations sought to have law enforcement raids curtailed somewhat to help obtain greater accuracy, we respect ICE's statement that they will not suspend raids even if a decision were made to ask them to do so. The Census Bureau fully recognizes that times have changed, with new challenges facing immigration authorities, and Census will change with those times."
The U.S. Constitution (Article I, Section 2) requires that the Census count everyone in the U.S. regardless of how they got here. Immigrants now account for 40 percent of the growth in the U.S. population. Accurately counting immigrants is therefore crucial to obtaining an accurate count.
The New York Times reported in 2001 that Arizona gained two more seats in Congress "largely because of a soaring Hispanic population in the state in the last 10 years." New Jersey saved a congressional seat in 2000 because of immigration. Nearly half a million people left New Jersey between 1990 and 2000. But nearly an equal number of immigrants moved in.
The people most apt to be under-counted are minorities and the poor, according to
The New York Times piece. An undercount like this can affect everyone.
