The Census Project Blog

by Terri Ann Lowenthal

Did you have a nice Valentine’s Day, dear readers? I had a ball sending census Valentine e-cards to family and friends. Courtesy of the ya es hora. HAGASE CONTAR! (It’s time. Make yourself count!) campaign, the nifty cards conveyed a “we’re all in this together” spirit — Count the one you love!

And we’d better all be in this together, because the magnitude of the task is mind-boggling. We’re talking 310 million people (and no national registry)! It’s going to take not just a lot of hard work to achieve anything close to an accurate count, but also a great deal of creativity to gin up collective enthusiasm for the census.

So, is everyone pitching in? Well, in one corner we have census advocates who believe that the U.S. Constitution calls for an enumeration of everyone living in this great country, in order to create a level playing field in our democracy. These believers — national and grassroots nonprofits, private and corporate foundations, business owners — are supplementing the Census Bureau’s outreach and promotion campaign with an unprecedented range of innovative activities targeting segments of the population that are at greatest risk of being missed.

Christmas brought us posters and palm cards, distributed in churches across the country, which highlighted the journey of Mary and Joseph to be counted in an ancient census. The NAACP is circulating a “Take the Census Pledge.” Voto Latino is offering 25 iTunes to those who promise to fill out their form. The Leadership Conference Education Fund whipped up attractive calendar magnets spotlighting key census milestones to celebrate the Lunar New Year. Moving Forward Gulf Coast, Inc. taped a really cool video, featuring Darnell Dinkins (who dat?), for its “Man Up, Be Counted” campaign, aimed at historically undercounted Black men. Target will print the census logo on its shopping bags next month.

Coming up are events focused on senior citizens, college students and small business owners in hard-to-count communities. Once census forms are in the mail, there will be a Census Faith Weekend (March 20-21) and National Week of Action (March 22-27), when community organizations will make an all-out push to encourage their constituencies to fill out the questionnaires. It’s all so uplifting!

In the other corner we have … ummm, well, we have the Republican National Committee sending out an “Official Document” that is a fundraising appeal disguised as a “Census” of the party faithful. We have House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) signing a similar plea for funds on behalf of the National Republican Congressional Committee that tells recipients they have been “carefully selected” to receive the “census document.” The Virginia-based Council for Retirement Security commissioned a National Census of Senior Citizens (see the mailing – PDF). I think I see a pattern here: “Hey, what a great opportunity to get everyone’s attention! Let’s pretend we’re a census!” (Still nothing on Rep. Boehner’s Web site promoting the real census, though.)

We have Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), Fox News and a host of conservative organizations lambasting the Census Bureau for buying a Super Bowl ad. That is not fair! Were it not for the official paid media blitz, the rip-off artists wouldn’t be able to take advantage of growing public awareness to look for a “census” envelope in the mail.

And we have Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN), Glenn Beck and Tea Party leaders telling people not to answer any census questions beyond the number of people in their households. The Constitution doesn’t contemplate any additional queries, according to the anti-census crowd. Oh really? According to the Census Bureau’s Web site, the first census in 1790 asked six questions, including gender, race and relationship to the head of the household. Virginia Representative James Madison (he, of the band of Founding Fathers and subsequent Oval Office fame), a member of the special congressional committee that designed the first census form, apparently recommended at least five of these subjects.

I don’t know about you, but this constant negative drumbeat just doesn’t get my census juices flowing.

So with Census Day finally on the horizon, you’d better hope your neighborhood is in the bull’s eye of the imaginative and inclusive pro-census campaigns. Otherwise, you might spend the next ten years wondering why there’s no money to widen the highways, hire more cops and build more classrooms, and why new businesses aren’t opening their doors in your community. And don’t bet on being able to ask your elected officials to help you make the case, because political representation will flow to those who collectively stood up to be counted.