The decennial Census is one of the oldest if not the first functions of the Federal Government, mandated in
Article I Section 2 of the U.S. Constitution. The relevant section:
"Representation and direct taxes shall be apportioned among the several states which may be included within this Union, according to their respective numbers ... the actual enumeration shall be made within three years after the first meeting of the Congress of the United States, and within every subsequent term of ten years, in such manner as they shall by law direct."The Census has been conducted every ten years since 1790. Not even a Civil War or two subsequent World Wars came in the way of it. But now something has happened that is set to wreak havoc upon the entire exercise.
On Monday night, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross announced that
he is directing the Census Bureau to ask all respondents to the 2020 Census to report their citizenship status. He made this decision over the strong objections of former census directors representing both Republican and Democratic administrations,
60 members of Congress,
161 Republican and Democratic mayors,
19 state attorneys general,
more than 170 civil rights organizations, and prominent business leaders, among others, all of whom strongly advised against adding a citizenship question.
So, what's the big deal?
"The Census touches virtually every aspect of our lives, determining our political representation, shaping how federal resources are allocated, powering our businesses, driving decisions by schools and police departments, and informing medical research.
Under the Constitution, seats in the House of Representatives are divided among the states every 10 years based on the population count that the census generates. Seats in the Electoral College are allocated the same way. States also use census data to draw district lines for congressional and state legislative seats – a necessary process to make sure communities are fairly represented. Census data also guides the distribution of hundreds of billions of dollars in federal aid. It informs statistical publications that help business owners and local governments make key decisions on matters ranging from marketing and investment to the assignment of police beats. And it provides academic researchers, journalists, and others with invaluable demographic information."
Even though Census workers are held to a
very high standard when it comes to sharing or using the information so gathered (the Census Act contains some of the the strongest privacy and confidentiality protections that exist in federal law, each violation of which will net you up to $5,000 in fines or five years of jail time) as it is you have millions of people who don't trust the Feds and who already don't like to be questioned by Census workers. Especially now that we are under this white nationalist regime, some of them would be afraid that they would be ratted out to ICE or something.
So, who benefits from an undercount of American residents? And why would this man do such an obviously partisan thing, despite near-universal opprobrium? Take a wild guess...
New York Magazine: "Trump’s Census Change Could Give the GOP an Advantage for Years to Come"
While it might seem like the epitome of boring government bureaucracy, the count of every person living in America — which must take place every ten years, according to the Constitution — is extremely important, as the data is used to draw political districts and determine the distribution of federal funding. The Trump administration’s move is likely to give Republicans, who already have an edge in congressional and state legislative maps, an even greater advantage for years to come.
The citizenship question has not been included in the decennial Census since 1950, though it is included in some smaller population surveys. Adding the question is expected to discourage noncitizens — a population already difficult to count accurately — from responding to the Census. A majority of undocumented immigrants live in 20 metropolitan areas, so undercounting this population would shift power and resources away from more Democratic-leaning cities and toward Republican-leaning rural areas.
...There’s ample evidence that the Trump administration has been trying to use the 2020 Census to their political advantage, from a foiled attempt to put a leading defender of GOP gerrymandering in charge of the Census, to refusing to hire noncitizen Census-takers, who are seen as crucial to reaching immigrant communities...
Former U.S. attorney general Eric Holder, who has devoted his post-Obama administration career to fighting the GOP’s state-level advantage, said he intends to sue as well.
“We will litigate to stop the Administration from moving forward with this irresponsible decision,” said Holder, who is now chairman of the National Democratic Redistricting Committee. “The addition of a citizenship question to the Census questionnaire is a direct attack on our representative democracy.“
This is the weaponization of the Census, and there shall be no good from it.