Who's A Person?
Simply put, the question was who should be counted as a person and who, if anybody, should not. But there's nothing simple about it. The Senate voted one answer and, in effect, invited the Supreme Court to decide whether it was right or wrong. That happened because in the arithmetic of congressional reapportionment, every question becomes complex, contentious and politically charged. The point at issue in Senate debate on a new immigration bill was whether illegal aliens should be counted in the process that will reallocate House seats among states after the 1990 census. There could be enough of them to shift seats away from at least five states to Sun Belt states with large numbers of illegal residents. Nobody is certain because counting illegal aliens is a hard thing to do, given the fact that they don't want to be spotted by the government. Then again, the Census Bureau maintains that not including them, and still coming up with an accurate 1990 population count, would be even more difficult. ``A census of only legal residents cannot be done as accurately as a census of all residents,'' according to Census Bureau testimony to Congress. After the 1980 census, the government estimated that there were 2.57 million people in the United States illegally. There were other guesses, some of them far higher. The government made no attempt to count them out in the redistricting process; indeed, the two previous administrations decided that the Constitution required that the census cover illegal aliens along with citizens. There is not likely to be any change in that prior to the 1990 census next spring. The Senate has passed an immigration bill including an amendment that would cut illegal aliens from the redistricting numbers, but it is not likely to clear Congress before the next year's national head count. Sen. Richard Shelby, D-Ala., proposed, and won, the immigration bill amendment that is supposed to exclude illegal aliens from the redistricting process. It would give Secretary of Commerce Robert Mosbacher the assignment of adjusting the census figures so that illegal aliens don't count for purposes of redistributing House seats. It does not come with instructions, so the department would have to figure out how. Shelby's amendment says only that the secretary is to ``make such adjustments in total population figures as may be necessary, using such methods and procedures as the secretary determines feasible and appropriate'' to keep illegal aliens from being counted in congressional reapportionment. That task would be perilous politically, since it would involve taking House seats away from some states and giving them to others, all on the basis of estimates. With 435 seats in the House, every representative gained by a state is a representative lost by another. Opponents of the Shelby amendment, led by Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., said it was unconstitutional, as well as unworkable. ``The framers of the Constitution intended to count all persons,'' Kennedy said. The Constitution itself says the apportionment of the House is to be determined on the basis of ``the whole number of free persons,'' excluding Indians and counting every five slaves as three persons. That was amended after the Civil War to say that the apportionment of House seats will be based on ``the whole number of persons in each state.'' Neither the original article nor the amendment mentions citizenship in connection with apportionment, although the term ``citizens'' is used in some other provisions. Opponents of the amendment said that showed the authors of both documents wanted everybody counted for purposes of apportionment. But Sen. Alan K. Simpson, R-Wyo., said the people who wrote the documents had no concept of illegal aliens because there weren't any in their time. That came later, with immigration restrictions that began in 1875. Sen. Bob Dole of Kansas, the Republican leader, said the question should be put squarely to the Supreme Court. He said it is unfair to count illegal aliens in reapportionment. ``It just does not make any sense,'' Dole said. ``It does violate the constitutional principle of one man, one vote.'' But opponents of the Shelby measure said apportionment doesn't involve who votes and who doesn't. Women couldn't vote when the Constitution and the 14th Amendment were adopted, but they always were counted. Children can't vote, but they count, too. The amendment was adopted after the Senate voted 58 to 41 against a move to reject it, and 56 to 43 against scuttling it as unconstitutional. Shelby said that is sure to put the matter into the hands of the courts for a final judgment. ``Somebody is going to challenge it ...'' he said. ``Then, for the first time, we will let the Supreme Court of the United States decide something that we need an answer to ...''
1990 census;national head count;census bureau;illegal residents;house seats;illegal aliens;congressional reapportionment