Brought To My Census – Part 3

One final point of irony needs to be made regarding the census and the American Community Survey that I’ve written about so far. I appear to be one of a very few who is bothered by the personal intrusion of the questions asked in the survey. But the one that confuses me the most is that no outcry has been raised over the following question, found on page eight of the ACS:

Is this person a citizen of the United States?, with the possible answers given as:
· Yes, born in the United States
· Yes, born in Puerto Rico, Guam, the U.S. Virgin Islands, or Northern Marianas
· Yes, born abroad of U.S. citizen parent or parents
· Yes, U.S. citizen by naturalization
· No, not a U.S. Citizen

In essence, the question allows the federal government to ask me about my immigration status. And guess what? That is exactly what Arizona’s new controversial immigration law does! The Arizona law allows police to query a person’s immigration status, with possible deportation being the result. Since being passed into law, Arizona bill SB 1070 has garnered huge protests and raised a cry from people all over the country (though a Pew Poll shows that 73% of people surveyed favor requiring people to produce documents verifying their legal status – where is that in the media?). The city of Los Angeles voted to boycott the state of Arizona over the issue. And President Barack Obama called it “misguided”.

Has anyone read his American Community Survey back to him?

It appears that the federal government believes it has the right to ask the immigration question of any American household, but decries a state doing exactly the same thing? Perhaps the “left” hand doesn’t know what the “right” hand is doing…

Brought To My Census – Part 2

In the first article on our family’s census experience, I talked about my opposition to any census questions that go beyond my name and the number of people in my family. My resistance to this practice is that the questions are racist – they are certainly not blind to skin color or ethnic heritage. Also, I believe the questions go far beyond the reach of what the Constitution allows in Article 1, Section 2. I’m probably in a very small minority who is offended by the direction of the questions. But I am not going to answer them.

So it is ironic that the government chose my family to receive an additional set of questions to answer this year – the American Community Survey. Every month, on a rotating basis, 250,000 homes are randomly selected to receive the survey. The survey itself is a whopping twenty-eight pages long – and if there are five people in your household, there are potentially 272 questions to answer! Some of the questions include date of birth, race, where you were born, and if you are a citizen of the United States. And then the questions go on to ask (and I’m not making these up):

· What year was your house built?

· How many rooms in your home are bedrooms?

· Does your house have a flush toilet? (!!!) A stove? A refrigerator?

· How many cars do you own?

· What was your previous month’s electricity bill?

· How much do you think you could sell your house for?

· How much is your home insurance payment? Your monthly mortgage payment?

· What is the highest degree of schooling that you obtained?

· “Because of a physical, mental, or emotional condition, does this person have serious difficulty concentrating, remembering, or making decisions?”

· What is your marital status?

· At what location did you work last week (provide the address)?

And on, and on. The personal nature of many of these questions is alarming. But even with all of this intrusion into my privacy, the real problem for me is this:

The government tells me that I am legally required to answer every one of these questions.

I know this because they have now visited me twice at my house, and called me three times (twice during evening hours) to tell me so. They have been pushing to get these answers from me or my wife, and the last two phone calls have been downright threatening. My name, and the number of people in my household is all that I am giving them. In fact, I didn’t give them my telephone number, but they told me that they worked with the telephone company to match my address and obtain it (I mean, hey, it’s right there in the White Pages, but they went out of their way to tell me that they had “worked with the phone company”).

They proceed to tell me that Title 13 of the United States Code, Sections 141 and 143, gives them the authority to demand my response, and makes it mandatory. I tell them that Title 13 is unconstitutional. They don’t have an answer for that, except to say “Okay”, and put me back on the calling list for next week.

I found the answer to fix this as well. The person calling you will tell you that they cannot take you off the calling list – that you will be put back on the call rotation for an indefinite period until you answer the questions (or they finally give up). The secret? Ask for a supervisor. Unlike the typical census call person, the supervisor can mark you down as a refusal, and take you off the list.

Or at least that is what they told me this week. We’ll see.

Brought To My Census – Part 1

Article 1, Section 2 of The United States Constitution allows for the enumeration of our citizens every ten years. Specifically, this section says, “The actual Enumeration shall be made within three Years after the first Meeting of the Congress of the United States, and within every subsequent Term of ten Years, in such Manner as they shall by Law direct.” This clause is specifically called out in the section devoted to the House of Representatives – it doesn’t appear in the adjacent section on the Senate. The reason for this is clear – the 435 representatives decreed by the Constitution are apportioned by population within each state. So, the purpose behind the census is that we may apportion the correct number of representatives in the House, and the adjustment is made every ten years. This seems like a fair deal.

So, I was a bit surprised when I received my census form in the mail and read the questions which appeared. Of course, there were the standard questions – “What is your name?”, or “How many people were living or staying in this house, apartment, or mobile home on April 1, 2010?” Those seem perfectly acceptable and within the bounds of what our Constitution requires.

But can someone please tell me why the government thinks it has the right to ask:

· Is this house, apartment, or mobile home: owned with mortgage, owned without mortgage, rented, occupied without rent?
· What is Person 1's race?
· Is Person 1 of Hispanic, Latino or Spanish origin?

In my estimation, those questions are none of the government’s business. Oh, I know why they are asking such things. It has to do with the verification and implementation of special programs designed to divert money to groups of a certain ethnic heritage or financial position.

And that is one of two things - socialism or racism.

Imagine for a minute that I decided to hire some neighborhood kids to do some yard work around my house on a weekend. Would I be within acceptable bounds to ask them what their race is, or what the value of their parent’s house is – because I plan to pay each of them differently, based on their answers? Of course not. There would be a cry of outrage from the community, and I would probably get written up in an article in my local newspaper. But that is exactly what the federal government is doing – diverting tax money unfairly, based on skin color or financial status. Let’s be honest – the government’s questions are not color-blind or fair, and they certainly exceed the power given to them by the United States Constitution.

So, instead of sending it in, I held on to my census form and awaited the promised visit from the hired census worker. I left instructions with my wife and children to hand over the census form should they call - filled out with only my name and the number “5” only. I attached a brief note explaining why I was a “census conscientious objector”. I even told my kids to be nice and offer the worker a cookie and something to drink. But by no means should they provide any other information. Sure enough, just a few days into the census period, we received a visitor. And my daughters gave her only the answers as instructed.

Perhaps this seems like no big deal to many people. But I am genuinely offended at the blatantly racist questions asked on our census form. A business owner is disallowed by law from distributing money unequally based on a person’s race – why is it considered okay for the government to do the same thing? It’s time to bring the government back in line with their original charter. Maybe I should have had my kids attach a copy of the Constitution to the survey, as well…

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Unfortunately, this is not the end of our census story. We next began to receive phone calls from the Bureau, with increasing rudeness – detailed in the next installment…