In reviewing comments last night, I found where frequent commentor "Final Frontier" rather pithily dismissed John Leo Walter's citation of a Heritage Foundation piece about President Ronald Reagan because of the source, one she considered somewhat biased.
At the same time, I received my usual weekly assignment item from the Patriot Post; this week they asked me to write a short piece about the controversy regarding politicization of next year's census by the White House, particularly once they picked a Republican to head the Commerce Department.
It got me to thinking about how someone can see a scholarly look at the legacy of a President she dislikes as so biased, yet presumably belong to a party which has no problem with taking an educated guess regarding how many Americans live here and where exactly their domicile lies.
According to Article I, Section 2 of the Constitution, it's up to Congress how the Census is completed:
"The actual Enumeration shall be made within three Years after the first Meeting of the Congress of the United States, and within every subsequent Term of ten Years, in such Manner as (Congress) shall by Law direct."
The problem occurs when Congress uses that count to distribute over $300 billion in funding based on those figures. For every person not counted or placed in a different jurisdiction, that's $1,000 in federal funding one could call misallocated. Forget that there's homeless people who may not wish to be counted and many millions here illegally who shouldn't be.
In the runup to the last Census, there was a bid to allow for statistical sampling to determine the population in particular areas. Fortunately the Supreme Court decided that was improper insofar as Congressional districts are concerned, but they left the door open for states to redraw their legislative districts in that manner. If you look at how Wicomico County is drawn legislatively by the state of Maryland, one has to ponder whether there was sampling used or just a mad attempt to run our county's map through a jigsaw.
To me, it seems like the Democrats want to do a census in the same manner they want to count votes - just like in a close political race, they want to magically "find" a few extra residents in areas they control. If a count is to be done, it needs to be done accurately by counting as many willing residents as possible. It's a citizen's civic duty to stand and be counted - but just once.