This month, almost 2 million census forms will be mailed and hand-delivered to households in Colorado as part of the once-a-decade attempt to count everyone in the United States.
At stake are billions of dollars in federal funds and the shape of federal and state legislative districts.
“The big ones that most people talk about are money and power,” said state Demographer Elizabeth Garner.
The U.S. Census Bureau aired commercials during the Super Bowl and the Olympics, helped sponsor a NASCAR race car and even inserted a census worker as a character into a Spanish-language TV soap opera to draw attention to the count.
The bureau hopes to have 80 percent of the Colorado forms returned by mail by April, said Cathy Lacy, Denver regional director for the Census Bureau. Those who do not return the forms will be contacted through door-to-door follow-up, Lacy said.
The first salvo began March 1, when census workers began delivering forms by hand to about 400,000 homes in rural areas that do not have standard street addresses, Lacy said. On Monday, letters went out to residents, alerting them that the census forms will arrive next week.
Here are some of the consequences of the count:
Money
Garner estimated that each person counted equals $880 a year in federal funds for the state. That comes to more than $4 billion a year based on the state’s latest population estimate of just over 5 million people.
Highway and transit funds, a slew of school funds, insurance coverage for low-income children, housing subsidies and welfare assistance are based on population counts and other demographic information collected by the Census Bureau, said Jerry O’Donnell, public information officer for the census.
In addition, the state parcels out money to cities and counties for programs such as open space based on their counts, Garner said.
Political power
Every decade, the census triggers massive political battles on redrawing congressional boundaries with both political parties trying to gain the upper hand.
Colorado is unlikely to add a U.S. House seat, but several of the districts should change shapes.
Republican Rep. Mike Coffman’s district has way too many constituents, while the seats held by Democrats Ed Perlmutter and Diana DeGette probably have too few.
The state House, the state Senate and the governor try to decide on new boundaries for the state’s seven seats, but no party controlled all three in 1980, 1990 and 2000.
As a result, the last three redistricting attempts have ended up in court.
A state commission appointed by the leaders of both state houses, the governor and the chief justice of the state Supreme Court decide how the state’s 100 legislative districts are redrawn. The census population counts will be released Dec. 31, with detailed information following in April 2011.
