Real Districts Have Curves
Sunday morning begins with the Brennan Center's Justin Leavitt laying out why it's so important to Stand Up and Be Counted.
Dan Petegorsky
Here's a figure to chew on: $400 billion in Federal funds are allocated each year based solely on the Census.
That’s just one of the reasons why Sunday morning at CSTI began with loud shouts of “STAND UP! BE COUNTED!” echoing across the campus.
The Census is the biggest peacetime mobilization our government mounts – and it’s coming next April. It’s vitally important exactly because it counts people who often don’t count in the halls of power: people we work with every day who are struggling to make their voices heard. So it allocates clout in addition to cash, either consolidating or fragmenting the power of different constituencies.
The Brennan Center’s Justin Leavitt laid out six things you can do:
- Educate your community about the importance of the Census
- Focus your work on areas that are hard to count – people who may be unlikely to return the forms that are mailed out
- Recruit people who are trusted in the community to be Census takers (these are paid jobs!)
- Have
your organization become a “Census Partner”
http://2010.census.gov/partners/ - Staff
a census help center (there will 30,000 of these around the country)
http://www.civilrights.org/census/outreach/assistance-center.html - Fight the boycott! There is small group of clergy working with the undocumented who are trying to convince people to boycott the Census: this may be honestly motivated but is a disastrous strategic approach that empowers those who want us to go away – to lie down instead of standing up.
VERY helpful resources are available at:
