Why is the decision by the Obama Administration to have the director of the Census Bureau report to the President and his staff during the upcoming census a big deal? First some background. The United States Census is the cornerstone of our Democratic Republic. It is the ultimate arbiter of how States are represented in the House of Representatives and how the President of the United States is elected – the Electoral College. Due to the cornerstone nature of the census to our nation, it cannot be subject to tampering or manipulation.
Article I Section 2 of our Constitution provides for the enumeration of the “people” of the several states. At the time the Constitution was adopted the “people” consisted of citizens and slaves in habiting this land, with the exception of Indians. The Fourteenth Amendment in Section 1, specifically classifies the “people” to be counted as “All persons born or naturalized in the United States…” as citizens. Article I is commonly known as the Legislative Branch Article, while Articles II and III are the articles create the Executive Branch and Judicial Branch respectively. Article I establishes the structure of the Legislative Branch and enumerates its powers. There is no mention of the Census in Article II for the structure or powers of the Executive Branch.
This delineation of responsibility is important because only our Congress is charged with conducting the census every ten years and the Congress has charged the Commerce Department with the census enumeration. Remember the Senate also provides advice and consent for the appointment of the Commerce Secretary – it is delegating the function of actual counting to the Commerce Department and then to the director of the Census Bureau. This position is also with an approved appointment with the advice and consent of the Senate. For a continuing read on the law in this matter, read a blog by O.T. Hill or a piece on the Census at the American Thinker.
Our new President – fresh from cheerleading for a stimulus bill, which is much more a social engineering spending bill that does not contain the short term and targeted nature of the kind of stimulus bill he said we needed and promised earlier – has decided and directed that the director of the Census Bureau will now report to him and keep his staff, Rahm Emanuel – chief of staff, in the loop along with the Commerce Secretary. This is clearly an attempt to manage the process by the Executive Branch. It is a jump of the chain of command and a bid to take over or control the census in violation of the Constitution. There is no valid reason for the Executive Branch to participate in the management of the Census. The Executive Branch is not charged with Census enumeration, Congress is. The census has been and should be an independent effort and is supposed to be non-partisan.
Tell me; are the President and Rahm Emanuel non-partisan?
We must ask if this is an effort by the President to manipulate the enumeration count and to manage the apportionment of legislative seats and electoral votes to the states. Is this an effort by the President to co-opt the longstanding non-partisan process in order to stack the outcome? Is there any other reason why the President would want to or need to muscle into this delegated sphere of Congress?
As this Administration gets its head of steam, beware of its actions. While each action, decision, or change individually may seem benign, taken as a whole you may very well find a targeted effort to change the cultural and political landscape of this country and to insure the far left will be in power for fifty or more years. Be alert to these types of decisions, pronouncements, and appointments by Mr. Obama during this term. The Democrats in the House saw fit to elect their most far left person as Speaker of the House and the Senate Democrats elected their most far left leader as the Senate Majority Leader. Connect the cadre of far left Congressional leadership and the far left leadership from the White House. Add in the Democratic Party’s clear majority in the House, and the near clear filibuster proof majority in the Senate and you have an incredibly far left powerful and culture and political change cadre of non-main stream thinkers. Sprinkle this recipe with the cadre’s support from George Soros and you have a socialist bouillabaisse. It is clear that they can and will try to move this nation to socialism and insure the long term absolute control of this nation’s politics, culture, and power with changes such as the seemingly innocuous “keeping the President in the loop on the Census”. The social engineering non-stimulus spending bill was the start.
Updates starting February 13, 2009:
Senator Judd Gregg, (R) New Hampshire, today withdrew his nomination as Secretary of Commerce. Likely this had all to do with the hijacking, in violation of the Constitution, of the census by President Obama and Rahm Emanuel. Obama can claim all day long that his selection of a Republican for his cabinet represented the best in a bi-partisan effort. Well, when you make the nominee a part of the biggest heist so far in the Twenty First Century, of course he would withdraw his nomination. For analysis on why Gregg quite read Bill Kristol in the Washington Post.
Here is an article in the paper that I almost never thought I would be steering anyone to. The article from this usual left thinking paper makes the same point I do, and with an unusual balance – SF Gate (the web home of the San Francisco Chronicle).
Ken, all I can say right now is “from one small acorn has grown a mighty nut” ….
I’m angry, disappointed and yet determined to ensure that Americans KNOW what our media is NOT sharing about the direction this administration is taking us.
Since Obama’s earnest drive to convince the nation to weaken its economic strength through redistribution as well as weaken its national defense, COUPLED WITH HIS UNPRECEDENTED WHITE HOUSE TAKEOVER OF DECENNIAL CENSUS TAKING FROM THE COMMERCE DEPARTMENT, has confirmed the very threats to our Republic’s survival that the Constitution was designed to avert, it no longer is sustainable for the United States Supreme Court and Military Joint Chiefs to refrain from exercising WHAT IS THEIR ABSOLUTE CONSTITUTIONAL DUTY TO DEFEND THE NATION FROM UNLAWFUL USURPATION. The questions of Obama’s Kenyan birth and his father’s Kenyan/British citizenship (admitted on his own website) have been conflated by his sustained unwillingnes to supply his long form birth certificate now under seal, and compounded by his internet posting of a discredited ‘after-the-fact’ short form ‘certificate’. In the absence of these issues being acknowledged and addressed, IT IS MANIFEST THAT OBAMA REMAINS INELIGIBLE TO BE PRESIDENT UNDER ARTICLE 2 OF THE UNITED STATES CONSTITUTION. Being a 14th Amendment ‘citizen’ is not sufficient. A ‘President’ MUST BE an Article 2 ‘natural born citizen’ AS DEFINED BY THE FRAMERS’ INTENT.
Greg has had his eye on the census for years to increase our votes. Obama learned Greg’s game late and maneuvered to keep him from helping us with the census. We lost this initiative so Greg quit. Greg almost slammed dunked one for us. He failed… its not all complicated as stated above.
Some of us don’t twist or pretend about our republican power: its win at any cost. Greg knows this. Sorry you can’t admit this Ken. You weaken our cause.
Well BshyBsh, you seem to not understand that the census is to be non-partisan and that this is a constitution thing. You do not sound much like a Republican or a Conservative. If you have noticed recently, the Democrats have adopted that “win at any cost” philosophy. Um!