Has Michele Bachmann’s Census War Backfired?
Last week I posted a list of states slated to gain and lose congressional seats in the upcoming election. While doing that post, my inner geek had me focusing on the numbers and I totally missed this part:
Minnesota (-1): Open seat in 2010; state Senate 46 D, 21 R; state House 87 D, 47 R
Luckily TPM picked up on that loss and is now wondering if that’s why Michele Bachmann has stopped her anti-census talk:
The state of Minnesota could be on the verge of losing a House seat after 2010 -- and interestingly enough, it's been a while since we heard Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) talk about refusing to participate in the Census.
Last year, Bachmann repeatedly said she would defy the Census by not completely filling out the information on the forms, but would instead only give the number of people in her household. She said that Census data was used to conduct the 1940's Japanese-American internment, and warned that the government was seeking to gather information about people's mental health. But as far as we can tell, her last anti-Census public statement was in August.
