http://washingtontimes.com/national/200 ... -1583r.htm

GOP lawmaker seeks to bar noncitizens from census
Published December 7, 2005

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
REUTERS NEWS SERVICE

A Republican lawmaker yesterday proposed changing the U.S. Constitution to exclude noncitizens from the census for the purpose of drawing congressional districts, a move that effectively would deny them a voice in U.S. politics.

Under the present system, as determined by the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, the Census Bureau counts all people living in the country once every 10 years. This data is used when drawing up the 435 congressional districts and when determining each state's vote in the Electoral College that decides presidential elections.

Rep. Candice S. Miller, Michigan Republican, wants to change that so that both legal immigrants and illegal aliens would be excluded.

"This is about fundamental fairness and the American ideal of one man or one woman, one vote," Mrs. Miller told a hearing of the House Government Reform subcommittee on federalism and the census.

According to the 2000 census, there were 31 million foreign-born people in the United States, of whom an estimated 60 percent were not citizens. No one knows exactly how many illegal aliens are in the country, but estimates range from 10 million to 12 million.

Taking that into account, excluding noncitizens would have boosted President Bush's margin of victory in the Electoral College from four votes to 12 votes in the disputed 2000 election and from 34 votes to 42 votes in 2004, according to Clark Bensen of Polidata, a Virginia firm that analyzes demographic information.

Mrs. Miller's proposal comes amid a growing tide of anti-immigrant sentiment, particularly among Republicans in the House. Several proposals are under consideration to toughen border controls and make it more difficult for employers to hire illegal aliens.

Supporters of the amendment argue that the presence of noncitizens caused nine seats in the House to change hands between states in 2000.

California gained six seats it would not have otherwise, while Texas, New York and Florida each gained one seat. Indiana, Michigan, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin each lost a seat and Montana, Kentucky and Utah each failed to receive a seat they otherwise would have gained.

"Immigration takes away representation from states composed almost entirely of U.S. citizens so that new districts can be created in states with large numbers of noncitizens," said Steven Camarota of the Center for Immigration Studies, which favors a slowdown of legal immigration and tough enforcement against illegal aliens.

Mrs. Miller's proposal ran into resistance from Democrats and Hispanic leaders. A former head of the Census Bureau also said it would politicize the count, diminish public confidence in the census and make it more inaccurate.

"The Census Bureau cannot become a quasi-investigatory agency and still perform its basic responsibilities as a statistical agency," said Kenneth Prewitt, who headed the Census Bureau from 1998 to 2000.

Lawrence Gonzalez of the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials said the proposal harked back to the days before the abolition of slavery, when blacks were counted as three-fifths of a person.