Thread: UT-Counting citizens

Counting citizens

The Salt Lake Tribune
September 27, 2009 Sunday

U.S. Sen. Bob Bennett is sponsoring a bill that would require the Census Bureau to ask every American in 2010 whether he or she is a citizen or in the United States legally.

This sort of pandering to voters who are enraged by illegal immigration may help to get Bennett re-elected, but it would not accomplish much beyond that.

Don't get the wrong idea. The senator is right that it would be useful to know how many people living in the United States are citizens or legal immigrants and how many are not.

Bennett argues that apportionment in the House of Representatives should be based on the legal population of each state so that those with large populations of illegal immigrants do not achieve disproportionate representation in the Congress.

But as a practical matter, asking illegal immigrants to truthfully check a box on a census form asking if they are in the country legally is like asking a guy when he stopped beating his wife.

Immigrants who are here illegally are not likely to disclose their status on a government form, no matter how much the Census Bureau tries to convince them that their responses are confidential.

In fact, including the question would probably cause illegal aliens, including those who have citizen children, to shy away from the census altogether. That could make the count less accurate.

Besides, the Constitution may not support Bennett's contention that representation in the House should be based only on the number of legal residents. Section 2 of the 14th Amendment reads: "Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed." Notice that "persons," not legal residents, are to be counted.

We don't know how the courts may have interpreted this language, but it appears on its face that apportionment is based on total population.

There's also a practical problem with Bennett's bill. In July, the Census Bureau began printing the 120 million questionnaires it will mail to U.S. households in March 2010.

To get the job done, it is printing 1.5 million forms daily. The census director says it is too late to start over and add Bennett's question to the 10 that the form already includes.

Bob Bennett is a smart guy, and we figure he knows all this stuff. He filed the bill anyway, which suggests that he calculates that in a tight nomination race before the Utah Republican Convention, it would do him good to offer a bill that appears to exclude illegal immigrants from reapportionment. Even if the bill has dubious practical value.

http://www6.lexisnexis.com/publisher/En ... 80&start=3

Bennett argues that apportionment in the House of Representatives should be based on the legal population of each state so that those with large populations of illegal immigrants do not achieve disproportionate representation in the Congress.

Totally exact.