Bachmann: 'Some very serious problems with the census'

Rep. Michele Bachmann
Rep. Michele Bachmann before she addresses a tea party crowd gathered on the lawn of the Minnesota State Capitol on Saturday, March 13, 2010.
MPR Photo/Nathaniel Minor

U.S. Census forms will start arriving in the mail this week, and Census officials are encouraging everyone to fill them out. But Minnesota Congresswoman Michele Bachman says the Census should only count citizens.

Bachmann was widely critical of the Census during a press availability in Stillwater. She cited the costs of census promotion efforts such as advertising and in-person outreach efforts.

She also expressed concern that other states stood to gain representation in Congress, even as Minnesota is in danger of losing a seat to growing populations in other states.

"We will probably have seven or eight more representatives in the state of California, specifically because of illegal aliens," Bachmann said. "This is supposed to be counting legal American citizens, not about counting illegal aliens, so that they can have representation in the United States Congress. So there's some very serious problems with the census."

Bachmann said she's also concerned about privacy and another census effort, the American Community Survey, which replaced the old census long form.

Census officials have said strong privacy protections are in place for the information collected during the census.

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