[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 100 (Thursday, July 23, 1998)]
[House]
[Pages H6191-H6192]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                             CENSUS DEBATE

  (Mr. BALLENGER asked and was given permission to address the House

[[Page H6192]]

for 1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. BALLENGER. Madam Speaker, should we count or should we take a 
poll? The census debate boils down to that difficult question.
  The Democrats say, why should the Constitution stand in the way of 
rigging the numbers the way we want? After all, the Democrats are 
either unaware of Article I, section 2 of the Constitution that states 
in clear language that Congress shall direct that a census be conducted 
using an actual enumeration, or they simply wish to ignore it.
  Either way, it is troubling that one party is willing to go so far to 
trample on the Constitution just for political purposes.
  Most Americans do not have a Ph.D. in English or in American 
constitutional history. But most Americans do believe that sampling, 
guessing, or taking a poll does not qualify as actual enumeration, also 
believe the Constitution actually means what it says.
  They are pretty tired of liberal Democrats inventing out of whole 
cloth things that are in the Constitution, no matter how many liberal 
experts in Washington tell us otherwise.

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