CENSUS and Sensibility

Seriously, this is no "April Fools" joke.
WHERE will you be counted?

At a recent meeting of the Quartzsite Town Council, a crafty gentleman from La Paz County extolled the virtues of counting winter visitors as RESIDENTS in the upcoming census. He stated emphatically "If they are here on April 1st, then they WILL be counted HERE!"

If you haven't heard, WHERE  you are counted determines WHICH community gets the FINANCIAL CREDIT from the government.Over 400 BILLION dollars of Federal funding is earmarked for infrastructure and services like:

• Hospitals
• Job training centers
• Schools
• Senior centers
• Bridges, tunnels and other-public works projects
• Emergency services

Divide that by the "120 million households" that the census questionnaire was mailed to and start estimating what your corporeal body may be worth in US dollars. (About $1,300.)The data collected by the census also help determine the number of seats your state has in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Now I'm certainly not suggesting that the Federal money in play here wouldn't help to offset a little of the gigantic debt that Quartzsite and La Paz County officials have incurred...but so many winter visitors will still be here on April 1st because it is still too cold at "home". If the community where you spend the majority of your time and probably own property is elsewhere, do you want these funds to go to La Paz County? Or do you want these projects, services and representation where you really live?

http://www.newswithviews.com/Betty/Freauf160.htm

Hey, be counted (or not) wherever you please, but if your mail is received elsewhere, or hasn't caught up to you etc. and you wish to be counted, then visit a Questionnaire Assistance Center or Be Counted center: These are sites where you can obtain a questionnaire. A “Be Counted” questionnaire asks you to put down a full description of your address, and then contains the same 10 questions as the other Census form. You can complete a Be Counted questionnaire if you have not received your form. Beginning March 19 through April 19, Be Counted questionnaires will be available in public locations, such as libraries, within your community and at Questionnaire Assistance Centers where census workers will be available to answer questions. Beginning March 18, these locations will be posted on 2010Census.gov. If you still have not received your form by April 12, then you may contact the 2010 Census Toll-free help line at 1-866-872-6868 if you speak English. For more information, go to:

http://blogs.census.gov/2010census/2010/01/how-two-homes-breed-duplicate-counts.html#comments

How To Protect Your Rights Against Unconstitutional Census Ta... 

To Census taker ;

To Whom it May Concern,

Pursuant to Article I, Section 2, Clause 3 of the Constitution, the only information you are empowered to request is the total number of occupants at this address. My "name, sex, age, date of birth, race, ethnicity, telephone number, relationship and housing tenure" have absolutely nothing to do with apportioning direct taxes or determining the number of representatives in the House of Representatives. Therefore, neither Congress nor the Census Bureau have the constitutional authority to make that information request a component of the enumeration outlined in Article I, Section 2, Clause 3. In addition, I cannot be subject to a fine for basing my conduct on the Constitution because that document trumps laws passed by Congress.

Interstate Commerce Commission v. Brimson, 154 U.S. 447, 479 (May 26, 1894)

"Neither branch of the legislative department [House of Representatives or Senate], still less any merely administrative body [such as the 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.'"

Note: This United States Supreme Court case has never been overturned.

Respectfully,