By Larry Jones
November 9, 2009

By a vote of 60 – 39, the Senate rejected an amendment offered by Senators David Vitter (LA) and Robert Bennett (UT) on November 5 that would have added a question to the census form asking respondents about their citizenship. Vitter offered the amendment as the first step in an attempt to get immigrants excluded from the population count of each state so that the 435 House seats will be apportioned based purely on citizenship.

Vitter claimed that his state, along with eight others, stand to loose a House seat to states with large immigrant populations if the Census Bureau continues to count all people residing in each state as it has done in the past. The U.S. Justice Department and just about all of the census stakeholder organizations believe the U.S. Constitution requires that every person residing in state and local communities be counted in the decennial census.

With the census scheduled to begin in less than six months, the amendment was offered very late in the process. Census Bureau Director Robert Groves told a Senate panel this Fall that 100 million census forms have already been printed. To reprint them would cost the federal government an additional $22 million. Plus, he said to change the form at this late date will undoubtedly delay the census count, which is scheduled to start on April 1, 2010.