ACTION ALERT:The Vitter-Bennett Census Amendment—Count Citizens, Stop Swamping America!

Call Harry Reid at (202) 224-3542 and tell him to put this post from http://www.fairus.org/ up for a vote and tell him that if he doesn't put it up for a vote, you will contribute to his opponent Jerry Tarkanian here
.Also read more reasonings about this topic here and if you are in one of the states that voted against putting this up for a vote, contact your Senator here , or click their name in the article below, and tell him you will vote him out!!

Senate Democrats Block Vitter/Bennett Census Amendment
On Thursday, November 5, all 60 Senate Democrats voted to shut off debate on the Fiscal Year 2010 spending bill for the Departments of Commerce, Justice and certain federal science programs. This vote effectively blocked the Senate from voting on an amendment offered by Senators David Vitter (R-LA) and Robert Bennett (R-UT) that sought to require the Census Bureau to include questions about citizenship and immigration status in next year’s decennial census. (Associated Press, November 5, 2009).As FAIR has previously reported, this was not the first time the Senate voted to shut off debate on the so-called “CJS” spending bill. On October 13, 2009, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) filed “cloture” on the CJS bill in an attempt to block the Vitter/Bennett amendment from receiving a vote. This parliamentary maneuver, however, failed, as the motion to invoke cloture received only 56 of the necessary 60 votes to pass. (Roll Call Vote #320, October 13, 2009). After this original attempt to block the Vitter/Bennett amendment failed, Reid pulled the bill from the Senate floor. (See FAIR’s Legislative Update, October 19, 2009). On November 5, Reid once again brought the bill to the floor and promptly filed a second cloture motion. This time, Reid’s procedural maneuvering worked: all 60 Senate Democrats voted for the motion, effectively blocking the amendment from receiving a vote. The vote was entirely along party lines, with 39 Republicans voting against Reid’s cloture motion, and one Republican, Senator John McCain (R-AZ), not voting. (Roll Call Vote #335, November 5, 2009).The U.S. Constitution requires that the government conduct a census every 10 years to determine the nation’s population. The results of the census are used to allocate Congressional seats to each state and, according to the census bureau, to determine how nearly $400 billion is allocated in federal spending every year. According to data compiled by Senator Vitter’s office, Indiana, Iowa, Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania and South Carolina each stand to lose a Congressional seat after the 2010 census. These seats are ultimately going to be re-dispersed to four states with exceptionally high illegal alien populations: California, Texas, Illinois, and New York. This means that these four states with large illegal alien populations will receive more than their fair share of federal funding and representation in Congress at the expense of nine other states.The Vitter/Bennett amendment would have laid the groundwork for reforming how Congressional seats are apportioned by disregarding illegal aliens and other non-citizens so that they are no longer able to affect both the outcome of U.S. elections and the dispersal of funding for certain federal programs.The question that true immigration reformers are asking, then, is why did Senate Democrats from the nine states that stand to lose federal dollars and representation in Congress vote to block the Vitter/Bennett amendment?
The following is a list of ten Democratic Senators from the nine states listed above, all of whom voted to block the Vitter/Bennett amendment:
Evan Bayh (Indiana);
Tom Harkin (Iowa);
Mary Landrieu (Louisiana);
Carl Levin (Michigan);
Debbie Stabenow (Michigan);
Kay Hagan (North Carolina);
Jeff Merkley (Oregon);
Ron Wyden (Oregon);
Robert Casey, Jr. (Pennsylvania); and
Arlen Specter (Pennsylvania). (Roll Call Vote #335).