Thursday, October 29, 2009

There goes that "excluding Indians not taxed" clause again

Hat tip to Prometheus 6 for judicious quoting of the Constitution over at his place on the 2010 census issue.

October 28, 2009
California Would Lose Seats Under Census Change
By SAM ROBERTS

A Republican senator’s [Vitter, R-LA --ProfGeo] proposal to count only United States citizens when reapportioning Congress would cost California five seats and New York and Illinois one each, according to an independent analysis of census data released Tuesday. Texas, which is projected to gain three seats after the 2010 census, would get only one.

I can't see Texas giving up two potential congressional seats (representation, $$) just to avoid the Constitutional mandate to count "the whole number of persons in each state." But the state has been known to cut off its nose to spite its face. Texas might, if properly cajoled by its jingoist inbred cousins in Louisiana, join in the attempt to leave non-citizens (oh, whoever could they mean? Our Canadian and British guest workers? Right...) out of the 2010 census. That's a lot of legal residents unsupported.

Even though the proposal to leave out certain whole persons is blatantly unconstitutional, they might get brownie points from the ultra-right for talking a good game-- just for bringing the matter up. That's sad in itself.

2 comments:

ProfGeo said...

I have relatives in Louisiana so I do not speak lightly of the malevolent cross-border influence between that state and Texas (where I also have relatives). You may be one of them. Welcome to the blog and to the 21st Century.

Blaque Swan said...

Arnold is a Republican. Cali's tax system isn't anything progressives brag about.

Undocumented workers of today can't be compared to European settlers. Starting off with, they don't have any diseases to which Native Americans have little to no immunity. And the certainly don't think they're superior to others.

Nobody from Louisiana should try to hate on Cali's tax problems. Starting paying more in federal taxes than you receive, then maybe Louisianans can talk.

By the way, those big fat checks your governor gave out last year were from Obama's stimulus. Just in case you didn't know.