Vitter's Census question snubbed

WASHINGTON -- The Senate on Thursday killed Sen. David Vitter's bid to require the 2010 Census to ask all respondents about their citizenship. It came on a party-line 60-39 vote to end debate on a spending bill without having to consider the Louisiana Republican's amendment.

Vitter wanted the citizenship count as part of a bigger effort to require that U.S. House seats be apportioned strictly on the basis of the citizen population of the United States, and not, as has always been the practice, on the total population.

Vitter said Louisiana is one of nine states that would either hold onto or gain a seat in the 2010 reapportionment if it were based on a count limited to citizens. He said the census would still count every person for other purposes.

Without the change, Vitter said, "Louisiana is going to lose a House seat, one seventh of our strength, our representation, our clout."

The Democratic leadership, which had been trying to derail the Vitter amendment since early October, eked out a partisan victory with the bare number of votes needed to invoke cloture. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., did not vote.

Vitter's Democratic colleague, Sen. Mary Landrieu, who had been caustic in her criticism of Vitter's measure, voted with the majority and afterward inserted into the record a statement that, "Blaming immigrants for our problems doesn't take much effort, but it won't make our state a better place to live either."

The vote was preceded by limited debate in which Vitter restated the case for his amendment, catalogued what he considers to be the mischaracterization of his efforts by those opposed to it and asked for an apology from Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., for suggesting that his amendment was anti-immigrant and akin to past efforts to intimidate African-Americans from voting.

"I take personal offense to that," Vitter said. "I think there is no reasonable comparison and I ask Senator Reid to apologize to me for that outrageous statement."

Responding to Vitter, Sen. Barbara Mikulski, D-Md., who was guiding the Commerce-Justice-Science Appropriations bill on the floor, said that while it was fine for Vitter to defend the interests of his state, "the time to stand up was in April 2007," when she said questions for the 2010 census were being vetted by Congress.

Mikulski echoed Census Bureau warnings that adding a question at this late date would wreck plans for a timely Census and be hugely expensive. Vitter said that he agreed that the Homeland Security Committee should have paid more attention to the census questions when they had the chance, but scoffed at the bureau's cost estimates.

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