Newt Gingrich: “I am really puzzled by what has happened on the issue of the census, because I think it comes from a complete…”

“I am really puzzled by what has happened on the issue of the census, because I think it comes from a complete misunderstanding of what we are trying to accomplish. The census is at the center of the American political system. It is the device which came out of the Constitutional Convention by which the Founding Fathers said the House of Representatives would represent people. And they then faced the challenge in 1787, but how do you represent people unless you know where they are? And they then faced the challenge in a very primitive country of how do you find all these people who are scattered, without telephones, without e-mail, without faxes, without a U.S. Postal Service as of 1787. They said, well, once every 10 years we will organize a mass effort and we will count every person. The term in the Constitution was 'actual enumeration.' Now, they went through actual enumerations in 1790, 1800, 1810, 1820. This went up every decade. It was required. It is actually written in the Constitution that we shall have an actual enumeration.”