The fight is not over in the Senate over Louisiana Republican Sen. David Vitter’s proposal to amend the 2010 Census forms to add a question on citizenship. In a demonstration of what the argument is really about, groups on all sides of the immigration debate are urging their constituencies to press senators on the measure.

The amendment, which Vitter defends as a way of fairly apportioning Congressional representation to states, has not been voted on yet and it’s not clear if it will be. It would be added to a budget bill for fiscal year 2010 for the departments of Commerce, Justice and some federal programs.

Vitter has been accused by Latino congressmen and pro-immigration advocates of trying to politicize the census and of not-so-subtly playing to the conservative base on the highly controversial issue of immigration. Whether that was his goal or not, it has clearly been achieved.

(more…)

After the Census Bureau said his initiative would prevent the 2010 Census from being completed on time, Sen. David Vitter (R.-La.) has partially backtracked on his proposal that the Census questionnaire inquire about each person’s immigration status.

“Vitter agreed to drop language that would require the census short form to ask every person about their immigration status,” Nola.com’s Jonathan Tilove reported on Thursday. The senator now wants the form to ask about respondents’ citizenship instead, said another Louisiana news site.

The senator’s shift came after the Census Bureau said that it was basically too late to make any changes, because most of the forms had already been printed, and adding questions would cost hundreds of millions of dollars for additional training for workers and software programming.

(more…)