Straight from the "You Can't Make This Stuff Up" 2010 Greatest Hits - Georgia Congressman Dr. Paul Broun ,who by the way carries a Constitution in his pocket, sent back an incomplete census and goes Bachmann on us
The congressman refused to answer questions about the sex and age of occupants, ancestry, or whether he lives in a rental or owns. "That’s none of their business," Broun said in a recent phone interview.
"The Constitution requires the federal government to count the number of people in this country every 10 years," the congressman said. "It doesn’t require them to ask a lot of personal information. People are very concerned about an invasion of privacy, and I have those same concerns."
cross posted at The Progressive Electorate
Yeah buddy not exactly the point to just fill in how many people live in your household.
Or to be king hypocrite by carrying around the constitution but not following.
Great catch by Think Progress on how this breaks the law of the land
"The Constitution requires the federal government to count the number of people in this country every 10 years," the congressman said. "It doesn’t require them to ask a lot of personal information. People are very concerned about an invasion of privacy, and I have those same concerns."
What Congressman Broun did is illegal. U.S. law says that people can be fined for refusing to honestly fill out the entire Census:
§ 221. Refusal or neglect to answer questions; false answers
(a) Whoever, being over eighteen years of age, refuses or willfully neglects, when requested by the Secretary, or by any other authorized officer or employee of the Department of Commerce or bureau or agency thereof acting under the instructions of the Secretary or authorized officer, to answer, to the best of his knowledge, any of the questions on any schedule submitted to him in connection with any census or survey provided for by subchapters I, II, IV, and V of chapter 5 of this title, applying to himself or to the family to which he belongs or is related, or to the farm or farms of which he or his family is the occupant, shall be fined not more than $100.
(b) Whoever, when answering questions described in subsection (a) of this section, and under the conditions or circumstances described in such subsection, willfully gives any answer that is false, shall be fined not more than $500.
Yeah keep what you need and throw the rest away. The wingnutt interpretation of the Constitution. It's like the new version not yet made. The Constitution has been rewritten apparently or at least has a 2010 Addendum.
Let's hope that Dr. Broun has to pull out a Benjamin Franklin if it hasn't been changed to the Ron Paul $100 Bill and pay his fine.
Yeah this is the same Dr. Paul Broun that called the Civil War - the Great War of Yankee Aggression
in a rant on health care
April 15 - Enough tea bagging and psycho talk for you today?