Fairness and accuracy of the census were of the highest importance to the Founding Fathers. They felt that by using the census to determine taxes, states would be discouraged from "fudging" their populations upward to increase their representation in Congress.

As a result, the United States Constitution requires that every ten years, a census is taken of the U.S. population. The outcome of this once a decade national headcount is used as a basis for the calculation of Congressional Apportionment, which is the distribution of the 435 seats in the United States House of Representatives among the 50 states.

In Congress, political parties use the census to jockey for position to help redraw districts so they can maximize their own party's clout while attempting to minimize the opposition. Congressional Apportionment is also used as the basis to distribute more than $200 billion in federal aid to the states each year.

The demographic changes based on the census can shift billions of dollars in federal funding for schools, roads and job training. The census also determines the number of representatives each state sends to Congress, the composition of the Electoral College and how congressional lines are drawn.

So, the census is very powerful political and financial tool that can be used for big political gains by Washington politicians. That is why that the recent move of census oversight from the Commerce Department to the White House has raised such concern.

In fact, White House Chief of Staff, Rahm Emanuel will oversee the process from the White House. Politics is certainly involved since just two years ago Emanuel ran the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and was an important factor in getting Democrats elected into the majority.

The prospect of White House census oversight is political meddling in a process that already works pretty well since the Census Bureau, enjoys a solid reputation for doing an honest, good faith effort at accomplishing a difficult job, locating 300 million persons.

The potential for a politically creative census headcount in 2010 is high because even the method of counting can change the census results. Democrats have long supported using estimates, a practice known as "sampling," to count urban residents and immigrants. Meanwhile, republicans insist that the Constitution requires a physical head count, which entails going door-to-door.

If sampling is the chosen method used to determine the census count next year, the choice of a statistical model can dramatically change the census result in favor of the Democrats.  Another controversial issue that can impact the census is to once again count illegal immigrants as part of the 2010 census.

Unfortunately, census oversight from the White House brings the prospect of partisan politics to the census process next year. The Constitution requires a national headcount, but inside the beltway, in Washington D.C., political power is the only thing that really counts in the 2010 census.

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