Will 2010 census count all Hispanics? - Parties differ while boycott is possible

ROB HOTAKAINEN MCCLATCHY
November 15, 2009

WASHINGTON - Rep. Joe Baca, D-Calif., wants to count all Hispanics in the 2010 census , including millions of non-citizens.

Sen. David Vitter, R-La., wants only legal citizens included in the official count.

The Rev. Miguel Rivera, who heads the National Coalition of Latino Clergy and Christian Leaders, wants illegal Latino immigrants to boycott the census as a way to show their displeasure with Congress's refusal to overhaul national immigration laws.

His motto: "No legalization, no enumeration."

Some states with large Hispanic populations have much to lose. Other states could come out ahead if Hispanics aren't counted or decide to boycott.

California could lose five of its 53 seats in the House of Representatives if non-citizens weren't counted, according to a study by Andrew Beveridge, a professor of sociology at Queens College in New York. New York could lose two of its 29 House seats, and Illinois could lose one of its 19. Indiana, Montana, North Carolina, Oregon, South Carolina and Texas each could gain a seat if non-citizens weren't counted.

The number of Hispanics living in the United States is approaching 50 million.

Rivera said a boycott was a good idea because the census would be important to the Democrats who control Washington as they looked ahead to using census numbers for reapportionment.

"We understand the political benefits of having a strong count," Rivera said.

Citizenship has never been a requirement for the census , dating to the first census in 1790, when each slave was counted as three-fifths of a person, said Clara Rodriguez, a sociology professor and census expert at Fordham University in New York.

"Slaves were not citizens," she said. "They did not become citizens until after the Civil War."

In the days of the Homestead Act, she said, there was no concern about the status of people who settled in Oklahoma and elsewhere because the nation was being flooded with immigrants.

"I don't think that anybody was asking whether they were citizens," she said.

The Constitution requires that the "whole number of persons" be counted. Some politicians differ, however, on how that should be interpreted.

The issue has been receiving plenty of attention on Capitol Hill.

In the Senate, Vitter teamed up with Sen. Robert Bennett, R-Utah, to introduce legislation that would require the census to ask people whether they're citizens. Vitter and Bennett suggested freezing funds for the Census Bureau if it won't change its forms to include a question about the citizenship status of all respondents.

In the House, Baca responded by introducing the Every Person Counts Act, which wouldn't allow anyone to be excluded from the census based on immigration or citizenship status. He said the Vitter-Bennett amendment "clearly violates the spirit of the Constitution."

Edition: Final
Section: Main News
Page: A15
Index Terms: CENSUS ,EMBARG,LATINOS
Record Number: 091115Census-Latinos
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