WCCO:
State demographer Tom Gillaspy projected Wednesday that Minnesota could fall just 1,100 people short of what it needs to keep all eight of its seats. A thorough census count next year could be enough to change that.
Star Tribune:
If Minnesota were targeted to give up a seat, the Sixth Congressional District represented by Republican Michele Bachmann would be particularly vulnerable, said Steven Smith, a political science professor at Washington University in St. Louis.
The people of Minnesota deserve a legitimate count. Billions of dollars of Federal allocations are at stake, and I hate to see a politician's stupidity hurt the people of her district. It is not desired for Bachmann's lunacy to have consequences, but still it is proper. Bad policy has bad results.
While the people of Minnesota are trying to preserve their political clout and the proper funding of their programs, Michele Bachmann is drowning them in her crazy and fighting to protect them from the tyranny of the Constitution.
Washington Times:
Outspoken Republican Rep. Michele Bachmann says she's so worried that information from next year's national census will be abused that she will refuse to fill out anything more than the number of people in her household.
Shelly Lowe, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Census Bureau, said Mrs. Bachmann is "misreading" the law.
She 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.
Volunteers and organizations in California and Texas will be bolstering their state's bids for the extra district. And Minnesota?
Washington Times:
Mrs. Bachmann said she's worried about the involvement of ACORN, the Association of Community Organizers for Reform Now, in next year's census.
"They will be in charge of going door to door and collecting data from the American public," she said. "This is very concerning."
Bachmann's fear mongering won her a news cycle when the Census Bureau dropped ACORN's participation in it's partnership program. In exchange, Bachmann could lose her state it's representation for the next decade.