Vitter Blames Undocumented Immigrants For Loss Of Louisiana Congressional Seat

[pampango]

http://thinkprogress.org/2010/12/22/vitter-census-immigration/

Yesterday, the Census Bureau released a new congressional apportionment map which gives more Congressional seats to the South and the West at the expense of the Northeast and the Midwest. One of the states that will lose a congressional seat is Louisiana.

Sen. David Vitter (R-LA) released a statement yesterday expressing his outrage. According to Vitter, undocumented immigrants are to blame for Louisiana’s loss of a congressional seat:

“Even though we’ve been expecting this, the confirmation that Louisiana will lose a congressional seat is frustrating. Last year, I tried to prevent this from happening with my amendment to require a citizenship question on the census and to prevent the counting of illegal immigrants for the purpose of apportionment,” said Vitter. “Now, Louisiana stands to lose clout in Congress, while states that welcome illegal immigrants stand to unfairly benefit from artificially inflated population totals.”

As Vitter notes, last year, he and Robert Bennett (R-UT) attempted to add an amendment to the Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies Appropriations bill that would require the U.S. Census Bureau to add a question about immigration status to its 2010 survey. According to Vitter, undocumented immigrants should be specifically identified and cut out of congressional reapportionment decisions because they “dilute” the voting power of the rest of the population.

The Fourteenth Amendment clearly stipulates that representation should be determined by “counting the whole number of persons in each State.” Asking a citizenship question would’ve likely dissuaded undocumented immigrants from participating in the Census in the first place. Widespread non-participation would have lead to inaccurate demographic information and costly mistakes in infrastructure, education, and health care planning. That’s why children, ex-felons, legal residents, and several other nonvoters are also included in the census apportionment data.

[COLGATE4]

1. Vitter needs to STFU and go play with his diaper. Asshole.

[COLGATE4]

2. Vitter needs to STFU and go play with his diaper. Asshole.

[justiceischeap]

3. It wouldn't have anything to do with shipping tons of people out of LA

during Katrina and then refusing to help them come back would it? It isn't illegal immigrants that are the problem, it's turning NO into Disney Land, doubling real estate prices and keeping out your low income citizens.

[SoCalDem]

4. Exactly.. and these were people the republicans WANTED "gone"

and some even said so, when they were being recorded.

What they did not count on, was the fact that if too many left forever, the state might lose a congressional set. It won;t matter much though, since republicans will just eliminate a democratic district:(

[dmr]

5. He's not too bright, is he?

It doesn't matter how many people are in other states - legal or otherwise.

What matters is how many are left in your own state. People move, they die & birthrates are down. And, due to teabaggers like Michelle Bachmann, many abstained from the census.
x(
That man has no business in Congress.

[LuvNewcastle]

6. There he goes again.

Vitter needs to Man Up and quit whining. Louisiana Republicans will just have to pull themselves up by their bootstraps and coax new members into their party.