It's Census Time!

Guess what arrived in my mailbox a few days ago: that's right, the official 2010 U.S. Census! Beginning Monday, more than 130 million U.S. census forms began arriving in people's mailboxes nationwide. This year's census includes only 10 questions, one of the shortest in our nation's history, in an effort to increase the rate of return. Question topics include: age, race, gender, household size, homeownership, and Hispanic ethnicity.

Although many don't fill out the census form due to laziness, some Americans actively reject the census because they feel it breaches their privacy. This belief is unwarranted, though. Federal law protects your privacy and keeps your answers confidential; law enforcement, tax collection agencies, and court cannot access any of the information. In fact, census data only becomes public after 72 years, for historical research reasons.

Filling out the census means building a representative democracy. Census results are used to decide the number of representatives each state has in the U.S. Congress, and also to draw electoral districts and allocate federal and state funds. By mailing that form, you are sending lawmakers a message that you want to be counted. A government is meant to serve its people, but who are those people? This is what the census defines, and it is up to us to make that definition accurate. If the definition is distorted, our government will be too, and we will only have ourselves to blame. So fill out those forms and mail them in. You'll be glad you did.