Last week, President Obama has moved the census out of the control of the Secretary of Commerce into the control of the White House, in a move that can only be described as purely political. Typically, the census is headed by the Secretary of Commerce. However, after a withdrawal from Democrat Bill Richardson, Obama’s new Commerce Secretary is Republican Judd Gregg. This has caused many minority leaders, mainly Barbara Lee, to question Gregg’s ability to conduct an inclusive census. These allegations have led Obama to make the change.
The traditional way of counting US citizens is by going door to door and getting a hard count. Democrats wish to change the way the census is taken and implement a sampling strategy. This means that general statistics about a certain area will essentially be estimated. The Democrats feel that sampling helps count the minorities and homeless in urban areas that are often miscounted. This sampling method is not the best option. Even if it can compensate for the miscounted (which studies proved it does not do better than the hard count), it cannot place them into a precise enough area for it to be effective. Obama will exploit this flaw in the next census to redistrict political boundaries to favor himself. This was shown when Utah, a conservative state, was denied a fourth seat in the House after the last census was taken under Bill Clinton. This gerrymandering will help him gain votes in the Electoral College, and will completely skew the way federal funds will be appropriated to their respective districts.
Secondly, this change is not only political, I believe it is illegal. The Federal Statute “Title 13” states that the census can only be performed “as an agency within, and under the jurisdiction of, the Department of Commerce” (13 U.S.C. 2.). It also states that the census can only be viewed by “sworn officers of the Department.” If the White House has direct control over the census, it is very well possible that this confidentiality will be breached, thus breaking the law even further.
As you can see, President Obama’s decision to move control of the census is nothing but political. The census should remain in the control of Secretary of Commerce Judd Gregg, and the sampling method of counting should not be considered.
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/first100days/2009/02/09/gop-sounds-alarm-obama-decision-census-white-house/
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123423384887066377.html
4 comments:
Now, here's an example of chutzpah: The Republicans didn't get their act together enough to challenge Obama for not being constitutionally qualified to be President as an Article 2 "natural born citizen" so Obama's White House steals the census from the Commerce Department against the specific instructions of the constitution itself -- "actual enumeration" under Article 1.
An interesting thing about this is that Obama decided to do it so early in his presidency. Aren’t there more pressing issues than who conducts the census? There are so many problems with the economy today. Will moving census power help solve that? I don’t see how it possibly could. It confuses me then, as to why he felt the need to make such a move at this point in time. I agree with you, as well as the articles, in saying that this move is completely political. There is no evidence to suggest any scientific motives, which the Wall Street Journal article mentions. It is hard to imagine that Obama honestly thinks that moving census control will improve the accuracy of the census at all. The Department of Commerce has been in charge of it for so long, so shouldn’t that be the department that has the experts necessary for taking an “accurate” census? It’s next to impossible to have a 100% accurate census, but those who work in the Department of Commerce are the most likely ones to be able to make things as accurate as possible. Unless Obama hires some expert statisticians or promotes experts from the Department of Commerce, the resulting accuracy and therefore credibility of the census will decrease. Like you said, Obama seems to be redistributing census control in order to redistrict political boundaries. Though he shouldn’t be able to reapportion seats in Congress because of Department of Commerce v. U.S. House, it still seems like he is trying to use the ability to redistrict political boundaries for his benefit. Anyone he hires will be working with some sort of bias, a result of working so closely with Obama. This bias will most likely work in Obama’s benefit. Obama should not be concerning himself with moving census control around, at least not so early in his presidency. He should focus on what he set out to do: fix the economy and country.
A real example of chutzpah? President Obama was born in Hawaii, which is actually surprisingly a state in the United States of America, therefore making Obama a natural born citizen. And some Republicans did try to act, see Berg v. Obama. The problem with the suit is that it is absolutely ridiculous, along with allegations that Obama’s birth certificate was forged. The birth certificate was confirmed as being valid by numerous sources including the state of Hawaii.
The first thing that came to mind when I read this article is that Judd Gregg recently withdrew from his nomination for commerce secretary citing “irresolvable differences” with President Obama. I wondered how this story affected his decision. This probably had something to do with the fact that Gregg felt as though Obama did not trust him. One of Gregg’s responsibilities was to perform the census, and there was probably a long argument between the two over this subject. Obama also completely changed the ability of the president to gerrymander. It will now be much easier for the president’s party. This issue was slid under the rug and didn’t receive much media attention, which may have been due to the media’s infatuation with the current president. If President Bush had done this, it would have been major news. Gregg is the second nominee to withdraw after Gov. Bill Richardson. This seat is becoming quite a problem for Obama, and he would have been better off waiting to deal with the census later. I agree with Greg that he has more important issues to worry about.
“An interesting thing about this is that Obama decided to do it so early in his presidency. Aren’t there more pressing issues than who conducts the census?” Yes Greg H, there are indeed other issues that seem to be more important than moving the census. Obviously the state of our economy seems to be the most important issue. Along with the economy crisis, President Obama should also focus on maintaining his cabinet. After all, a cabinet advises the president on most of the major issues our nation deals with, including health, education, treasury, and homeland security. So far, two of Obama’s cabinet members have resigned: Bill Richardson (Secretary of Commerce) and Tom Daschle (Secretary of Health). Richardson withdrew his nomination because of a scandal involving illegal contracts granted while he was governor of New Mexico, while Daschle resigned due to a tax scandal. Secretary of Treasury Tim Geithner was also involved in a tax scandal, only showing yet another problem with Obama’s cabinet. As Captain Morgan mentioned, the most recent resignation was by Judd Greg, Obama’s new choice for Secretary of Commerce. No, Gregg was not connected to a scandal, and this is the main reason I believe he resigned; that is, to keep his name clean. Aside from disapproving Obama’s stimulus plan, Gregg did not want his name to become associated with the illegal movement of census control, and therefore become yet another problem in a cabinet headed by a notoriously “rough politician.”
It is clear that Obama’s cabinet is no longer the “dream team” that it was once coined. Chief of Staff Rahm Emmanuel should make use of his experience in the Clinton administration as a senior advisor to the president and do a better job in helping Obama make his cabinet selections. The problems with the president's cabinet shows that Obama should in fact focus his time on other issues, and not take on the extra responsibility of dealing with the census.
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