I thought it was a brilliant move when Obama tapped Senator Judd Greg of New Hampshire to be Commerce Secretary. Greg is one of the most sensible and intelligent GOP Senators, and the appointment would have removed him from the upper chamber and put him in one of the most insignificant cabinet departments. I was rather disappointed when Greg agreed, but when the President of the United States calls upon you, an honorable public servant finds it hard to say no.
Greg's decision to withdraw from consideration is an embarrassment to both himself and the Administration. Greg should have realized that there would be irreconcilable differences between the President's policy and his own Republican principles. He should have foreseen that the activist core of the President's party would try to marginalize him, which it did. President Obama should have anticipated the same. Perhaps he did, except that he counted on it happening after Judd had resigned his Senate seat. That would be rather Machiavellian, but a touch of old Nick is something one wants in a President. Still, the withdrawal is an embarrassment to Obama. It's his fourth failed nomination, and the second for Commerce. The "screw-ups" of Presidents matter more, most of the time, than those of Senators from New Hampshire.
The more disturbing aspect of the story concerns the Census issue. The Administration apparently intends to move the supervision of the next Census from the Commerce Department to the White House. It's possible that this move was a consequence of the Greg nomination. The Democratic Left didn't want Greg in charge of it, or close enough to monitor it. Why would they be afraid of Greg's supervision?
The U.S. Census is required by the Constitution, Article 1, Section 2, Clause 3:
Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons. The actual Enumeration shall be made within three Years after the first Meeting of the Congress of the United States, and within every subsequent Term of ten Years, in such Manner as they shall by Law direct.
The Census determines the apportionment of the House of Representatives, and all seats in the state legislatures.
The Census has always been conducted by trying to actually count all the people in the United States. If you are an adult and reading this post, you have probably filled out a census form. Most people get them in the mail, and return them; but large armies of census takers descend on every neighborhood in the U.S. in an attempt to count everyone.
They never actually manage to count everyone. Some people are hard to catch up with. The Census Bureau estimates that in 1990 they missed about four million people. Some folks are harder to count than others.
The estimate [of non-counted persons] for Whites is about 1.8 million, for a rate of 0.9%. However, although fewer Blacks (1.4 million) than Whites were missed, they were missed at a higher rate, approximately 4.4%. Children were also disproportionately missed in the last census. The net undercount for children - about 3.2% - is twice the overall rate.
Because of the estimated undercount, there has been pressure from political activists to replace the traditional counting with a system that gathers as much information as possible and then produces estimates of the actual population based on statistical analysis. The resulting estimates would be the basis of future apportionment.
This would be a very bad idea. Actually counting is not perfect, but it's pretty good. It gets within 98% of the real figure. It also produces hard records that cannot be easily manipulated. By contrast, statistical analysis can be manipulated merely by changing the many variables in the formula. Given the uncertainty that has crept into American elections of late, do we really want to further undermine public confidence in the electoral system?
I recently defended the Obama Administration against a false charge that they wanted to change the oath that military officers take from loyalty to the Constitution to loyalty to Obama. That was a lie. The news that Obama wants to put the Census more directly under White House control is fact, and it is deeply troubling. Judd Greg was right to jump ship rather than have any part in it.
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