Congresswoman Refuses To Participate in 2010 Census
According to the Minnesota Independent, “Rep. Michele Bachmann told the Washington Times on Wednesday that she will not be filling out all the questions on next year’s census because ACORN will be one of the federal government’s many community partners for conducting the census. But what she is proposing to do is illegal, the Times reports.
“I know for my family the only question we will be answering is how many people are in our home,” she said. “We won’t be answering any information beyond that, because the Constitution doesn’t require any information beyond that.”
“There’s great concern that’s being raised because now ACORN has been named as one of the federal partners… This is very concerning because the motherload of all data comes from the census,” she said.
But as the paper reports, Bachmann is “misreading” the law — and it could cost her family $100 per question left unanswered.”
NOTE: Below, please find an audio recording of Bachmann’s interview with The Washington Times.
Tags: ACORN, Bachmann, Congress, Congresswoman, GOP, Michele Bachmann, Michelle Bachmann, Minnesota Independent, Rep. Bachmann, Republican, Republicans, The Washington Times, ThinkProgress, White House
June 18th, 2009 at 11:59 am
Why doesn’t My Two Census do some investigative reporting into these fines the CB threatens everyone with?
You will find it all to be hot air. Nobody. Ever. Gets fined. $100, $500, $5000, I have seen all these numbers used. It is a hollow threat and should be reported as such. Go back 40 years, 50 years and find anyone who has been fined. Two people were charged in 1960, nobody paid. One person in 1970, charges later dropped.
Now don’t you think that more than a few people refuse to answer all the questions? The new long form called the American Community Survey goes out each month to 250,000 households on a perpetual basis with the goal of covering everyone at least once in the 10 years between the ‘real’ census. A lot of people don’t like the questions and many refuse, there is a quiet revolt building against it. Yet no one can be found who has suffered any consequenses on non-compliance.
Yes, there is a law on the books that makes participation ‘manditory’. But the CB has no enforcement capabilities. It is never done.
If you truly see My Two Census as a neutral investigative site, look into it.
June 18th, 2009 at 12:12 pm
I was told during my interview for an LCO job that “everyone was getting the short form this year.” Might be something else worth looking into — whether the problems with the census will shortchange the information gathering beyond the basic information. The country is spending billions more and getting less data, apparently.
June 18th, 2009 at 12:23 pm
Dear Gary,
MyTwoCensus has already looked into the issue. You are correct. After speaking with the Public Information Office at the Census Bureau’s headquarters in Washington, it is true that not a single person has been fined during recent decennial headcounts. In fact, please find posts of mine on this subject here: http://www.mytwocensus.com/tag/fines/
What else would you like us to investigate?
Best regards,
Stephen
June 18th, 2009 at 1:44 pm
I worked for the Southbend office LCO # 2541 as a recruiter. Few points I would like to make.
1. According to the LCO the census bureau signed a lease for their building in October of 2008 but didn’t get into the building untill late Febuary of 2009.
2. The Census bureau says they go off test scores but the funny thing is the LCO has several employees that are her personal friends or children of her friends.
3. Having spoke with the Assistant recruiting mananger if she worked more than eight hours she was instructed to write out she donated the extra hours worked.
4. Chain of Command often used but only two people were ever given in the chain of command so if you have a problem with those two people who do you go to.
5. Scheduling according to Chicago they received Southbends schedule three weeks ahead of time but the recruiter would get it the day before sometimes the day of even the day after.
Personally I think the census is corrupt from middle management on up there are no checks and balances and threats of termination were a daily thing. In speaking with an employee from the Chicago office I specifcally told them to interview other recruiters that had the same issues and not to go off my experiences alone no follow up from the regional office ever came about.
I know the LCO of the Southbend office is a master manipulator and has covered her tracks well in speaking with another recruiter she was told not to use the LCO’s census e-mail with her issues but to use her personal e-mail account. I have saved everthing and have put it back for safe keeping.
June 18th, 2009 at 1:52 pm
What exactly is ACORN’s involvement with the Census? All I’ve heard is the paranoid right wing accusations. Forgive me for doubting that the org is really ‘taking over’ the census. I doubt they’re even involved in the door to door operations. Isn’t that what the Census Bureau is hiring thousands of people to do?
June 18th, 2009 at 4:21 pm
Kare: Slight clarification, I suspect several of your references to “LCO” were intended to be “LCOM” (the Local Census Office Manager, rather than the whole office).
Jo: You are correct. It’s a bunch of scare-hype baloney. ACORN is just one of dozens/hundreds of organizations and corporations that are merely part of the promotion partnership activities trying to encourage everyone to accurately fill out census forms. But the right-wing nuts saw the name “ACORN” and fixated on it, as they are obsessed with demonizing it.
June 18th, 2009 at 8:44 pm
@QC CL Yes, everyone gets the short form this year. Collecting the long form data only every 10 years is not good enough so the long form data is being collected from samples all of the time now. As Gary Hardester mentioned, the plan is to have everyone receive the long form during the 10 year span. The long form data has been collected this way for a few years now.
Nobody has ever been fined for not answering. They could change that policy at some point if they decide to. They have to power to do that.
June 18th, 2009 at 10:34 pm
Thank you Stephen, and thank you for this site. I do appreciate the efforts here.
It is just a sore spot with me that almost every news story about either the upcoming 2010 census or the continual long form ACS keeps going with the “you could be fined” thing. And it is not reported well that you can just refuse to answer. And nothing will really happen. They will try to wear you down, but no means no.
The 90 day cycle of harrassment that the Census Bureau put me and my family through when I got the American Community Survey just burned my britches. 30 days of threats by mail, 30 days of phone calls, 30 days where the agents may vistit you to intimidate you or a member of your family into compliance.
I will never answer any inquiry from them again. And nothing will ever happen about it.
June 20th, 2009 at 6:27 pm
Interesting premise, it’s ok to break the law if they don’t prosecute you. Are you planning to tell you’re kids that?
June 25th, 2009 at 9:55 am
If our founding fathers did not “break the law” we would not have the freedoms we have today. The census has been distorted over the years to include too much personal information that has nothing to do with population counting.
The Census is just another black hole that our tax dollars are thrown into.
June 26th, 2009 at 9:16 am
I won’t be participating – neither ACORN nor our new BIG BROTHER government is getting any more information on our household than they have through our yearly tax filing and the mass records they already have on us all through our births, employment, and no doubt medical records.
ACORN is just another thug group that unfortunately we seem to be supporting through our tax dollars – I am so disheartened at the damage this presidency has done to our nation in 6 short months. God Help Us.
June 26th, 2009 at 3:55 pm
I will be advising my family against participating in the 2010 census. I have my rights and I will be using them. I don’t feel I owe the Government anything. I pay my taxes each year (and there are questions on if that itself is legal.) Not interested in going above and beyond for them.
June 29th, 2009 at 10:51 pm
The ACORN “issue” is just over-the-top fear mongering:
http://www.factcheck.org/askfactcheck/is_acorn_providing_workers_for_the_2010.html
If Bachmann is serious about protecting our privacy, instead of screwing her home district out of representation and funds, how about introducing legislation limiting the questions (many of which have been asked for decades before this Census)? I’m guessing she won’t find much support, even from her fellow Republicans since the businesses that help fund them love that demographic data. Or how about using statistical sampling? Oops – the GOP is against that too since it might give a more accurate count of demographics that they are afraid of. Or she could propose new laws protect the privacy of personal data that private corporations collect, buy and sell. Oh, it’s evil when corporations know everything about us?
I also find it amusing that the Republicans are suddenly concerned about WW-2 internment:
http://www.pjvoice.com/v25/25002camps.aspx
June 30th, 2009 at 3:39 am
Bravo, Ex-IT!
July 13th, 2009 at 11:51 pm
The purpose, in their own words is to count everyone…”both citizens and non citizens…”
Then why would it be so difficult to include two important questions:
1. Are you an American Citizen
2. Are you a registered voter
Why?
It would seem that these two questions are far more important than many of the others.
July 21st, 2009 at 11:08 am
Linda B is right: Big Brother has no right to gather information that will be used to make smarter, more appropriate policies. In fact, why does the government have a right to improve our lives at all? If our Founding Fathers wanted to give government the right to improve our communities they would have written about it in the Constitution. They would ashamed to know we have public education systems, highways, and sewer systems.
Let’s send a clear message to our government this Census: we’re not going to give you the information you need to make reasonable policy choices, because you don’t have a right to it!
July 28th, 2009 at 8:13 am
Alan, you need to read the constitution. Our founding fathers did not intend for the federal government to provide us will all of these things. The constitution gives the power and responsibilities to the local and state governments, the governments closest to the people. When the power is centralized then the government become a dictatorship much like the one our founding fathers escaped from in England. I would like to see your list of smart and appropriate policies that has come from “Big Brother”. It is time we get back to following the constitution and put the power back in the local communities hands. It is time that we stop looking for “Big Brother” to take care of us and we start assuming individual responsibility for ourselves. Again, read the constitution and you will find that the census is only to establish a head count to determine the number of Representatives not to find out how many bathrooms are in your home. Lets get back to the true meaning of the constitution and tell “Big Brother” to stay home.
July 30th, 2009 at 9:28 am
I refuse to be a part of any more federal government intrusion in my life. I refuse to fill out or answer on thing, none of the Socialist governments business. Stick that up your shoot Obooboo.
August 24th, 2009 at 7:56 am
All you ingnorant people who cant seem to understand that the census is on your side, please go and crawl under a rock and stay there. Without the Census, you will not know the population in your area, you will then not have new schools, new fire depts, more police and hospitals. This is not big brother watching you, if you think it is, then move to your isolated cabin in montana with your grade 3 reading level and take with you all of your right wing nuts who are afraid to fill it out because you are terrified how much this country has changed in terms of ethnicity, culture and hard wirking people who will do the jobs that white racists will not because they beleive this country is all based on entitilement.
August 27th, 2009 at 3:48 pm
All they “need” to know is how many people live at a residence for data to help the House in it’s representation numbers. All other data appears to be added on after the fact, because it was easy since the effort to collect the population was already in play. IF YOU GIVE A MOUSE A COOKIE…
So far, no one has been fined, but will that change now that ACORN is involved and given the relationship with P-BO?
September 4th, 2009 at 5:16 am
A good question to the Census – Please explain the goal of each question (aside from the obvious questions of course? Yes, Census is intrusive, but all the data is presented to the public in raw form. Therefore the numbers are factual representations of the constituents giving the response. Furthermore, it is difficult for anyone in management positions to make informed decisions and policies without accurate data. The numbers (raw data) presented by the Census is eaten like a gravy train in every facet of our lives. It is hard to tell your government what they can or can not do since policy is pushed down from Washington. If anything, we as American citizens should rally around the Census, and use it as our indicator to ensure our elected officials are fulfilling their commitments. The same way Washington uses the Census to make policy, individual Americans can use the Census to address concerns in targeted areas identified by the survey. Example, has anyone even addressed the impact Census data had on the Subprime & Housing debacle starting in 2006? Who in our media was pointing to the statistical data readily available to give some sort of hint of the ensuing disaster? Lastly, who is crunching the numbers to show where blame should be laid for our current situation? I don’t know the answers to these questions, but someone does. Our leaders need to be held accountable, and the best way to do that is with a Census. If we don’t like the answers, lets lobby our elected officials. By not answering the Census survey, we are doing more harm to ourselves. The Census employees will get paid (taxpayer dollars) regardless even if the questions are not answered or the survey is not filled out. In the end, it is the American citizen that suffers (not government) from inaccurate data. I’m just naive enough to believe that the only way change can come about in this country is when American citizens begin to question practices & methods of our elected officials & government agencies.
September 10th, 2009 at 7:46 pm
Kare,
I have to agree with you on your post. In Michigan a lot of the same stuff is happening. In fact, here I hear rumors of the ELCO not be able to hire enough listers for group quarters, mind you this a rumor that I can’t verify but it is scary that people in this day and economy do not want to work with the census bureau after how they were treated during the AC operation. Remember that Group Quarters should need a staff of less than a third of AC. It should be easy for them to hire for this operation. If this does not set off Red Flags I don;t know what will.
BTW this is a great site so that we can see what is really going on behind the curtain of the census bureau, it is amazing how many people have had the same bad experiences.
January 8th, 2010 at 1:05 pm
[...] some time since Bachmann — who previously said she would not completely fill out the form and only disclose the number of people in her household — has criticized the census. And that might be because Bachmann’s district could be cut [...]
March 1st, 2010 at 7:22 pm
I will answer with my name only. I am now in my sixties and it bothered me when I was elementary school about my heritage. I was born in the US, my parents were born in the US and my grandparent were born in the US.
I will NEVER answer a question that I was forbidden to ask potential employees. If I cannot ask it neither can my government.
March 1st, 2010 at 7:25 pm
Add to my comment the I think Michelle Bachman is a right-wing nut job. She is no different than ACORN, just on the other end of the spectrum.
March 9th, 2010 at 12:41 pm
Typical media/gov’t saber rattling – claiming Bachman will eliminate her own district. Vacuous threat. A big BRAVO to Ron Paul for again saying NO and voting against the stupid Congress census love-in confidence vote. I lost confidence in the feds long ago and they will get nothing more than the head count in my home. Millions will boycott the unconstitutional census and yet again no one will get fined because the last thing the feds want is a fight in court or a likely class action lawsuit for infringement of 5th Amendment Rights
Pertaining to Census fines, Title 18 U.S.C. Section 3571 and Section 3559 state that the fine for anyone over 18 years old who refuses or willfully neglects to complete the questionnaire or answer questions posed by census takers from a fine of not more than $100 to not more than $5,000. Section 3571 states that The $5,000.00 fine referenced in section 3571 is a post conviction fine that only applies to an individual who has been charged and convicted of a criminal infraction as defined in section 3559. Unless an individual has been charged and convicted of some criminal offense connected to the Census and the crime is classified as an infraction, this $5,000.00 fine does not apply. SMOKE AND MIRRORS. Not only has no one been fined, but no one has nor likely EVER will be convicted under this section of law.
BTW, this has NEVER been overturned – Interstate Commerce Commission v. Brimson, 154 U.S. 447, 479 (May 26, 1894). Excerpt:
“Neither branch of the legislative department [ed. - House of Representatives or Senate], still less any merely administrative body [ed. - i.e. Census Bureau], established by congress, possesses, or can be invested with, a general power of making inquiry into the private affairs of the citizen. Kilbourn v. Thompson, 103 U.S. 168, 190. We said in Boyd v. U.S., 116 U. S. 616, 630, 6 Sup. Ct. 524,―and it cannot be too often repeated,―that the principles that embody the essence of constitutional liberty and security forbid all invasions on the part of government and it’s employees of the sanctity of a man’s home and the privacies of his life. As said by Mr. Justice Field in Re Pacific Ry. Commission, 32 Fed. 241, 250, ‘of all the rights of the citizen, few are of greater importance or more essential to his peace and happiness than the right of personal security, and that involves, not merely protection of his person from assault, but exemption of his private affairs, books, and papers from inspection and scrutiny of others. Without the enjoyment of this right, all others would lose half their value.’”