Michele Bachmann's Census Craziness Backfires, 'Very Personal' Information Made Public

A BUZZFLASH NEWS ANALYSIS
by Meg White

Last week, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) told the Washington Times (in an EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW!!! No, really? I wonder when Bachmann last granted an interview to a news outlet that wasn't totally loony tunes) she would not be filling out her 2010 Census in full.

Bachmann is ostensibly hyperventilating over the fact that the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) is among the groups tapped by the U.S. Census Bureau to help recruit people as temporary Census takers.

But in an interview on Sun Myung Moon's new radio show, Bachmann revealed her true fears about the Census: People who don't look like her demographically might get counted. Historically, this hasn't been a problem for Bachmann: Poor people, city dwellers, and minorities are harder to count than suburban white people who live in mansions on golf courses.

"I think what the threat of ACORN would be diluting the ballot box and the effectiveness of our votes at the ballot box," Bachmann said when she was asked about the terrible threat to democracy posed by ACORN helping conduct the Census. "Unfortunately, the Census data has become very intricate, very very personal, a lot of the questions that are asked. And I know for my family the only question we will be answering is how many people is in our home."

(And no, that is not a typo. The Washington Times and other news sources corrected Bachmann's grammar, but you can listen to the audio recording here.)

Thankfully, BuzzFlash HQ is blessed with resourceful neighbors who last week stopped by with a copy of Bachmann's census, or at least a close approximation of it. The thing about the Census is most of its questions are a matter of public knowledge, so filling it out on Bachmann's behalf isn't all that tough.

Will Caskey, principal of the opposition research firm Third Coast Research, said he "enthusiastically" supports the Census, and the document Third Coast produced speaks to their commitment to the free flow of information.

"Opposition research is about transparency. 'Very intricate' and 'very personal' information can often be found in ordinary public records. This document shows part of the process in effective opposition research," Caskey told me in an e-mail (we're coincidentally both working from outside the office today, which is why I didn't just stop by for a chat).

Most of the data in the document is pretty innocuous. However, Bachmann may have some 'splaining to do when it comes to her home, situated on a 2.75 acre lot, according to the records cited by Third Coast. They note that "public records do not indicate a mortgage; however this data is only a broad survey of public records. Having said that, the property was purchased for $760,000, a veritable steal considering its market assessment of $1.2 million."

Appearances aside, Bachmann might consider ditching her illegal crusade. The Washington Times article notes that a Census Bureau spokeswoman "sent a portion of the U.S. legal code that says anyone over 18 years of age who refuses to answer 'any of the questions' on the census can be fined up to $5,000."

As she's using the Census as a convenient noose with which to drag ACORN through the mud once more, Bachmann is simultaneously trashing an institution mandated by the Constitution, through which many important services are apportioned.

"Anna" at the blog Dump Michele Bachmann states the obvious for the ignorant Congresswoman:

Oh, and those other "personal" questions on the census form? Like whether there are preschool or elementary school children in the house? Those are used to plug into formulas that are used to provide proper funding to programs at state and local levels. Refusal to answer is not only against the law, it works against a community's best interests. Federal funding for these programs, at the proper levels, is important.

But just because things are important for her community doesn't mean Bachmann cares about them. Getting reelected, however, is important to her.

Another unspoken problem Bachmann has with the Census is its role in redistricting. According to one projection from Swing State Project, Bachmann could lose her seat due to declining population in her district. I can't really blame her constituents for high-tailing it; I wouldn't want to be represented by a nut job such as her either.

Republicans as a whole are raising non-issues to make people suspicious of the Census, which is making it extremely difficult to secure a director at the U.S. Census bureau. First Republicans (and the media) made the consideration and withdrawal of Judd Gregg's name for Commerce Secretary all about the Census when everyone involved insisted it wasn't. Now the GOP has put an anonymous hold on Obama's nominee to run the Census Bureau, Robert Groves, citing a seemingly non-existent unanimous consent issue. They're raising the specter of statistical sampling, which is prohibited by Congress anyway, to scare people into not trusting the government to do a headcount.

The sad thing is that self-serving, over-represented folks such as Bachmann might actually convince a couple of paranoid people -- who may actually need a share of the $300 billion parceled out according to Census figures each year -- to refuse to fill out the 2010 Census.

Hopefully the bureau will give Census takers a crash course in countering the propaganda of bulls**t factories such as Bachmann. And I pity the Census taker sent out to talk Minnesota's 6th district congresswoman off the roof of her mansion. Watch out, I hear she's "armed and dangerous."

A BUZZFLASH NEWS ANALYSIS

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