I don’t have any statistics to back up my point, but I’m guessing that Latinos are underrepresented in the 2000 census. I imagine that they, along with certain Asian communities, are the hardest to count because of language barriers and also non-compliance. Legal immigrants may be living with illegal immigrants, for example, or there may just be distrust that prevents a certain percentage of Latinos from filling out the forms. People may not realize it, but the Commerce Department is responsible for the doing the 2010 census. The fact that Bill Richardson will be the head of the Commerce Department is a good sign for assuring that the Latino community is fully accounted for in the new census.
About The Author
BooMan
Martin Longman a contributing editor at the Washington Monthly. He is also the founder of Booman Tribune and Progress Pond. He has a degree in philosophy from Western Michigan University.
Excellent point, BooMan. Is that a whole bunch of new democrat leaning voters that I hear? Wow–far out.
I don’t remember much detail, but I do remember the Republican congress making trouble for the Clinton administration’s census plans in ways that tended to lead to an undercount of minorities. We won’t see that this time around.
Didn’t the controversy (“sampling” techniques) wind up in court, and the court sided with the GOP?
Basically along the lines of “sophisticated statistical techniques hadn’t been invented when the constitution was written, so you can’t use them”
So there may be an adverse precident, but the question will be “who has standing to bring suit?”.
I am not familiar with the court rulings, but you’re right that it had to do with ‘sampling techniques’. Maybe someone that knows these issues will weigh in and educate me.
Anecdotes do not create data, but….
My retired father worked as an interviewer for the Census on the last go round, and was one of few who were able to get 100% participation on his census interviews (per his area coordinator per him). This allowed him to document some immigrant families (as well as at least one civil worker evading residency requirements) where others failed to follow up or count them. These were a small but not insignificant percentage of his work, and we are not in a densely populated area.
Unfortunately, his age and limited transportation would probably preclude his participation this time, but he was so successful last time that he was used to followup locally on several poorly canvassed areas (maintaining his success ratio).
Based on his experience, I would say that your surmise is likely true.
The Magna Carta. The First and Fourth Amendments in particular, and the Bill of Rights and the Constitution in general. In eight years the Bush maladministration undid eight centuries of progress in human rights.