By Micheal E. Hill
Monday, October 26, 2009 -  7:00 am EDT

After a number of false starts over the past month, the Senate this week could finally resume its consideration of a measure that has become the target of a proposal by Senators David Vitter (R-LA) and Robert Bennett (R-UT) to deny noncitizens representation in the U.S. House of Representatives.  The Vitter/Bennett proposal is embodied in an amendment that the two senators have offered to the Senate Appropriations Committee-reported version of H.R. 2847, the Fiscal Year 2010 Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act (C-J-S Appropriations Bill).   The amendment would require the Census Bureau to ask every person in the United States about his or her citizenship and immigration status. 


Procedural Situation
Should the Senate, as anticipated, resume its consideration of the stalled appropriations bill, it likely will face a procedural vote on invoking cloture on the measure, a move that would shutdown debate on the bill and prevent a direct vote on the Vitter/Bennett amendment.  In order to prevail on the procedural vote and bar a vote on the amendment, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) will need the votes of 60 senators. 

The Senate first took up the C-J-S Appropriations Bill on Monday, October 5, 2009.  However, Majority Leader Reid pulled it from the Senate floor late in that week, in part, in order to avoid a direct vote on the Vitter amendment.

Senators Vitter and Bennett originally offered their census and immigration status amendment to the funding bill on October 7, 2009,  Since then, Senator Vitter has announced his intention to revise the amendment.  The revised version would only require the Census Bureau ask about citizenship status; not immigration status.

Senator Vitter has stated that he intends to use any data gained by  citizenship or immigration census questions to ensure that noncitizens are not represented in the United States House of Representatives. 


Opposition to the Amendment
The Vitter/Bennett amendment is vigorously opposed by the Administration, former census bureau directors of both parties, Democratic leaders  in the House, rank-and-file Democratic Members from the three minority caucuses in the House, and by much of the immigrant, civil rights, and minority communities. 

Just last week, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD) blasted the Vitter/Bennett amendment, saying that "the census doesn't exist to score political points -- It exists to give us an accurate picture of our country."  He went on to assert that "adding a new question to the census, especially at this late date, would be damaging and irresponsible. That's also the opinion of every living Director of the Census." Continuing, the House Majority Leader said that the Vitter/Bennett amendment would "lead to an inaccurate count. With a question about citizenship, immigrants who fear being deported, along with their families and friends, are much more likely to avoid the census."

The Congressional Hispanic Caucus (CHC), Congressional Black Caucus (CBC), and the Congressional Asian and Pacific American Caucus (CAPAC) all expressed opposition to the Vitter/Bennett amendment last week.  Said CHC Chair Nydia Velazquez, "[e]very census since 1790 has included citizens and noncitizens alike, and presidential administrations of both parties have repeatedly upheld counting all persons residing in the United States." .

The Department of Commerce, which administers the U.S. Census Bureau, has said of the amendment, “[a]dding a new question to the 2010 Census questionnaire less than six months before Census Day (April 1, 2010) would mean the Census Bureau could not complete the enumeration, processing, and deliver of census results by the statutory deadline of December 31, 2010.  It is too late to shift gears at this point in the process.”

A bipartisan group of eight former Census Bureau chiefs also has weighed-in against the amendment, saying that “[a]dding a new census question now would require redesigning and reformatting questionnaires and all related materials, such as language assistance guides and web-based instructions; redesigning instructions and training manuals for more than a million temporary census workers; reconfiguring or rebuilding data capture and processing software, which is designed for the specific questionnaire already in place; and revising a $400 million outreach and promotional campaign, much of it already deployed, which highlights the new short form’s ten questions and often confirms that the census does not ask about immigration status.”

Notwithstanding the opposition of the Obama Administration, former census chiefs, and others, however, Senators Vitter and Bennett have persisted in their support for their amendment.  "Illegal immigration is a very real and significant concern for our country," Senator Vitter said in a statement.  "In the past, some states have included illegal immigrants during the census, resulting in the allocation of additional congressional seats.  We shouldn't let these states be rewarded for skirting our federal laws."  Senator Bennett, too, has explicitly stated his intention that the census data gleaned from the question should be used to ensure that illegal immigrants are not counted for the purposes of representation in the U.S. House of Representatives.


Other Immigration-Related Amendments Possible
In addition to the Vitter/Bennett Census and Immigration Status Amendment, several other immigration-related amendments have been filed to the measure.  They include an amendment by Senator Sessions on the E-Verify program, and separate amendments by Senators John Ensign (R-NV) and Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX) to increase funding for the State Criminal Alien Assistance Program (SCAAP).

Depending on the parliamentary situation that the Senate faces when it resumes consideration of the measure, the Senate could take up any of the following immigration-related amendments to the bill: