The always interesting Julia Preston has an insightful piece in the NYTimes today about efforts to ensure Latino participation in the upcoming census. It includes a reference to recent NDN work spearheaded by Andres Ramirez:
Nearly 12 million Latinos voted in November 2008, an increase of two million votes over 2004, according to an analysis by Andres Ramirez, a researcher at NDN, a Democratic advocacy organization. Now, in the first census since Hispanics passed blacks to become the second-largest population group in the United States, Hispanics want to extend that voting power with a census count that would support more elected representatives for their communities.
An analysis by NDN and America’s Voice, an immigrant advocacy group, projected that a full count of Hispanics would lead to a significant redrawing of the Congressional map, with six states picking up one Congressional seat (Florida, Georgia, Nevada, Oregon, South Carolina and Utah), while Arizona would add two and Texas as many as four.
For the US Latino community the next three years will be of great consequence. We will see the census, the passage of immigration reform and the 2011/2012 reapportionment at the federal and state levels. If each happen as they should, as Andres' reports above show, there will be a significant shift of political power in the US to states and parts of states with fast-growing Latinos populations, the beginning of a more proper alignment of the actual number of Hispanics in the US with their political representation at all levels of government. For Hispanic leaders making sure that all three of these game-changing events happen, and happen as they should, is both a great opportunity and great challenge in the years ahead.
For many years NDN and our affiliate the New Policy Institute has worked to make sure that the extraordinary demographic transition underweigh in the US today both better understood and for it to play out with the least amount of social strife possible. Which was what drove us this year to not only aggressively champion comprehensive immigration reform and the nomination of Sonio Sotomayor to the Supreme Court, advocate for closer Hemispheric ties and relations with our Latin neighbors, produce the reports cited above, but to also lead the successful campaigns to get CNN to drop Lou Dobbs and to defeat the pernicious Vitter-Bennett amendment in the US Senate which would have done so much to disrupt the census next year.
In looking back at our work these last few years I think this work - helping ease and enable the extraordinary demographic transition underway in the US - has been our most important and lasting contribution to the national political debate. I am grateful for all the support the NDN community has given us - the whole NDN team - to lead on these basket of issues which have often been hard and sometimes not well understood. But led we have, with moral clarity and bull-headed conviction, and the I would like to believe that the nation is just a little better for it.
But the battles ahead may be our most important yet. Get ready my friends.
Update - Here is the redistricting report cited above.
On Tue, lunchtime, NDN is co-hosting an event with America's Voice,"How Latinos Are Shaping Census 2010 and Reapportionment. At the event we will be releasing a major new report with a lots of information about US Hispanic population growth and how it is effecting American politics.
To learn more, get the coordinates for watching live, or to RSVP visit here.
The online edition of Newsweek has a new story on the Vitter-Bennett effort to disrupt the census and reapportionment. It includes these two graphs:
Immigrant advocates have been bracing for this clash for months. As Simon Rosenberg of the left-leaning New Democrat Network recently argued in a blog posting, “The Republican assault on the census and reapportionment will not end next week even if the Bennett-Vitter Amendment is voted down,” which it likely will be. “This is going to be a titanic battle.”
Rosenberg and others decry the proposed amendment as divisive. They say it seeks to pit traditionally red states that receive fewer immigrants (like Indiana and Montana) against blue states that are magnets for them (like California and New York). Indeed, an analysis cited in a New York Timesarticle today showed that if noncitizens were stripped out of the population totals, California would lose five congressional seats and New York and Illinois one each. Among the beneficiaries (surprise, surprise): Louisiana, Vitter’s home state, which would be spared the loss of one seat. Get ready for more skirmishes ahead.
A Senate vote could come as early as today. Call your Senator or use this site to take online action against this pernicious effort.
Just wanted to report in, quickly, on progress on three projects NDN is taking a leading role on right now.
Drop Dobbs - Several weeks ago, along with more than a dozen other groups, NDN helped launched Drop Dobbs, a website and campaign designed to knock Lou Dobbs off CNN. Tens of thousands have signed our petitions, watched our videos. And the campaign itself has gotten a lot of notice. Dobbs himself has addressed the campaign on the air, more groups are signing on, and some new steps will be announced soon. The NY Times has a major piece by Brian Stelter today which is the most important press story yet generated on the campaign - be sure to check it out, and if you haven't yet please add your name to the petition today.
Defeating Bennett-Vitter - For NDN blog readers you know that we have been long talking about the day Republican leaders would mount a series effort to derail reapportionment and the census by challening the propriety of counting non citizens particularly in the reapportionment process in 2011-2012. Well that day has come now, with Senators Bennett and Vitter attempting to put an Amendment on to the current Commerce appropriations bill which would add an 11th question to the census next year, in an attempt to get an accurate count of the non-citizens in the United States. NDN has issued many statements, been up on the Hill, organized two press conferences this week with allied groups and in general helped organize a well orchestrated push back on this irresponsible effort that would undeniably cost the country a great deal of money, threaten the integrity of the census and reapportionment processes and almost certainly be found unconstitutional.
For more on this important advocacy effort visit here, and also feel free to read some of the press stories this effort has also generated. Be sure to contact your Senator this week and ask them to vote no on Vitter-Bennett (the vote could be as early as Weds).
It’s a bitter human irony that we can be at our ugliest when we’re fighting for our most passionate verities, including democracy, freedom and the American dream. And it seems to happen most often in the politics of immigration.
Most of us are good people when we’re sitting around the dinner table. What happens to us as soon as we step up to the public podium?
If there’s one movie that shows the worst -- but also the best -- in that regard, it’s a documentary you’ve probably never heard of. As of now, it's unreleased.
Like many other independently made documentaries, “9500 Liberty” doesn’t have a distributor. That ought to change. So far, it has been on the festival circuit with forthcoming stops at the San Diego Asian Festival (Oct. 27), the San Francisco’s Sundance Kabuki Theater (Oct. 29), and festivals in Virginia, Austin and St. Louis in November.
And it lit up the virtual nation of Youtubia when filmmakers Annabel Park and Eric Byler posted their movie in progress. In the summer of 2007, Park and Byler took their cameras to Prince William County, Virginia, where an explosive debate was taking place.
In response to the burgeoning influx of Hispanics, the local board of supervisors was considering legislation that would require police officers to stop and question anyone who gave them “probable cause” to suspect was an illegal alien. The film follows the interaction within the board, out in the community and over the Internet, as the issue attracts increasingly inflamed and widespread debate.
And as we watch events unfold, we can’t help noticing this is all taking place in Manassas, the hallowed battleground site where another racially charged matter divided the political nation.
This postmodern version of civil war may not have the musketry and the spectacular loss of life of its predecessor. But it doesn't lack for absorbing drama. And a memorable cast of characters...
.....Even though the filmmakers’ political sentiments aren’t too hard to identify, there’s something to watch for viewers of any political stripe. “9500 Liberty” is local, yet powerfully American. And not unlike Marshall Curry’s excellent 2002 documentary “Street Fight,” which chronicled the stunning rise to power of Newark Mayor Cory Booker, it shows us politics where the rubber meets the road.
With an uplifting turn of events and some extraordinary acts of conscience, “9500 Liberty” is as dramatically charged as any fiction movie. And ultimately, it’s as powerful a booster of the democratic process as anything Frank Capra ever imprinted into our collective memory.
Those of you in SF this week are lucky - along with several other organizations we are cohosting a screening of 9500 Liberty this Thursday night, October 29th, at Sundance Kabuki. I hope you will be able to attend, and see what I have called one of the best movies I have ever seen.
From an editorial today in the NYTimes, "How To Waste Money and Ruin the Census" -
With the start of the 2010 census just a few months away, Senator David Vitter, a Republican of Louisiana, wants to cut off financing for the count unless the survey includes a question asking if the respondent is a United States citizen. Aides say he plans to submit an amendment to the census appropriation bill soon.
As required by law, the Census Bureau gave Congress the exact wording of the survey’s 10 questions in early April 2008 — more than 18 months ago. Changing it now to meet Mr. Vitter’s demand would delay the count, could skew the results and would certainly make it even harder to persuade minorities to participate.
It would also be hugely expensive. The Commerce Department says that redoing the survey would cost hundreds of millions of dollars: to rewrite and reprint hundreds of millions of census forms, to revise instructional and promotional material and to reprogram software and scanners.
During debates in the Senate, Mr. Vitter said that his aim is to exclude noncitizens from population totals that are used to determine the number of Congressional representatives from each state. He is ignoring the fact that it is a settled matter of law that the Constitution requires the census to count everyone in the country, without regard to citizenship, and that those totals are used to determine the number of representatives.
.....
Changing the survey now would be a disaster for the census and for American taxpayers. The Senate should defeat any and all attempts to alter or delay the 2010 count.
We here at NDN agree. Later this morning, NDN wiill join 10 other groups in a press conference asking the Senate to reject the Vitter-Bennett effort to disrupt the census and reapportionment. Last week I sent this letter to every Senator asking them to oppose these efforts in the days ahead.
Check back later for more from our press conference.
If the Vitter-Bennett Amendment SA 2644 on HR 2847 regarding the Census comes to a vote this week, I urge you to vote no.
While this Amendment may appear innocent, its intent and practical effect on the process are not. If carried out, it could dramatically disrupt an orderly Census count next year, throw the Census process into a legal and political morass that could also threaten a clean and accurate count, and is part of a broader strategy by Senator Bennett to challenge the upcoming reapportionment process which at this point appears remarkably, and offensively unconstitutional. There are simply too many questions about this Amendment for you to vote yes on it this week.
I will let others address the practicality of adding a new question to the Census at this very, very late stage. But I do want to address Senator Bennett's argument about why getting an accurate count of the non-citizens in the U.S. today is so important - to deny the ability for the undocumented immigrants in each state to count towards the upcoming reapportionment process. In his own statements on the Senate floor, and in his press release, he has made it clear that this reason is behind his Amendment - to start a racially charged effort to disrupt the once every ten year reapportionment process in 2011 and 2012.
In the aftermath of the Civil War, when Americans fought each other over slavery, the nation passed the 14th Amendment to the Constitution in order to make it clear that in reapportionment all people must be counted, and counted equally, correcting the infamous three-fifths of a person clause of the Constitution. The new language read:
Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State.
Senator Bennett's Amendment, while it does not address reapportionment directly, is part of a broader plan to directly challenge the 14th amendment - and thus the legal basis of the entire modern civil rights movement. This is a strategy that we believe is unconstitutional and will certainly be - given the historic import of this Amendment - offensive to some.
The issues being raised by Senators Bennett and Vitter are neither simple nor easy. If enacted their Amendment would almost certainly disrupt an orderly census count next year, and start a highly charged conversation about race, the Civil War and the 14th Amendment in the very first year of our first African-American President. I urge you to vote no on this Amendment, and request that issues it raises be given the level of consideration and scrutiny they deserve. This issue is too important to be left to a hastily tossed together and ill-considered amendment. Let Senator Bennett use his bill to start a more informed debate, giving all sides time to prepare.
Christina Bellantoni at Talking Points Memo has a must read piece up on the new Bennett Vitter Census Amendment. It includes a must watch video of Senator Bennett making the case for his amendment.
Whatever one thinks of the idea of adding another question to the census short form at this very late point in the process, focus must be put on Bennett's stated intent - to count the undocumented immigrants in the U.S. so as to deny their use in the upcoming, every ten year reapportionment process.
This new Bennett led effort seems to be, among many other things, a direct legal and political assault on the 14th Amendment to the Constitution:
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
The 14th Amendment was designed, of course, to correct the infamous "three-fifths" clause in the original Constitution, which relegated a class of people to be something much less than the rest of us. It is extraordinary that in the first year of the Presidency of the first African-American President the Senate is seriously considering an amendment which so directly challenges the integrity of the 140 year old legal framework which enabled, for example, Michelle Obama's family to move from slave, to free, and today, to the White House.
There are rumors afoot today that some Democratic Senators and moderate Republicans are considering joining with Bennett and Vitter on this amendment next week, giving them enough votes to pass it. Before they do they and their staffs better do their homework, and come to a better understanding of the real intent behind this seemingly innocent legislation - to attack the legal framework of the modern civil rights era, to discourage immigrants from participating in the census itself, and to launch a divisive and racially charged campaign over who we are today, and who are becoming.
As I wrote in an essay a few weeks ago, Waking Up to the Coming Battle over the Census, the Republican assault on the census and reapportionment will not end next week even if the Bennett-Vitter Amendment is voted down. This is going to be a titantic battle, next year and throughout the two year long reapportionment process. My essay looks at a recent WSJ op-ed which layed out the logic of this fight, which, included, incredibly a reference to the intent of the original Constitution, which of course had been, let us say, not so good on these matters of race and has needed some significant improving. Our own Rob Shapiro, who helped oversee the preperation of the last census, also weighed in last week with his own take on all this.
Those who have a role in ensuring a fair and accurate census and reapportionment need to begin engaging now in this fight, and not allow the other side to score early and significant victories before every one has their teams and plans together. The battle has been joined, and it is time to jump in, hard.
One of the best ways of course the nation has to neutralize this effort will be to pass immigration reform next year, giving the undocumenteds legal status, and thus rendering Bennett, Vitter and all their soon to be vociferous allies mute.
Here's the video of Senator Bennett making his case:
In an essay yesterday (which is still running on the front page of the Huffington Post), Waking Up To the Coming Battle Over the Census, I talked about the very real possibility that the national Republican Party will mount a sustained effort to undermine the Census next year because of the Constitutional requirement for it to count all people, including undocumented immigrants. One could easily imagine Rep. Joe Wilson, for example, leading this effort.
Yesterday we came across this story from the Salt Lake Tribune, which reports on a new bill just introduced in the United States Senate by Sen. Bob Bennett which attempts to identify the undocumented population and bar them from contributing to the reapportionment process. From the news article:
Bennett, a Utah Republican who faces a tough re-election effort, introduced a bill last week that would add an 11th question to the Census forms asking if the person is a citizen or legal resident. He wants to exclude undocumented immigrants from the count used to apportion seats in the U.S. House.
"It does not make any sense for congressional seats and the Electoral College to be determined by a process that unfairly provides the advantage to those communities with high illegal populations," Bennett said in announcing his legislation.
The question Bennett raises, and is raised by the authors in the Wall Street Journal in my post yesterday, is should the undocumenteds be counted? The 14th Amendment says:
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
The interpretation of this question for these many years is that, yes, everyone must be counted. And certainly the 2010 Census is designed to do just that. But given how the national Republican Party played politics (successfully by the way) with the Census and reapportionment process the last two times the nation went through this, we should expect another run this time too. And my guess is that despite the Constitutional requirement to count everyone most/many Americans would agree with Senator Bennett - why should places like Arizona gain at others expense through the presence of what will clearly be labeled "illegals?"
Which is why this debate could end up being so tough for those elected officials, including the President, required to defend the constitutionality of the current census strategy - because for many it will seem like it "makes no sense."
So how to avoid what could become a very ugly and divisive fight, pitting region against region, community against community, immigrants vs native born?
Pass comprehensive immigration reform prior to the start of the census count, making the "illegals" legal and finally fixing the broken immigration system once and for all.
Open to other ideas too. Feel free to share 'em. Anxious to hear your thoughts on this.
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