Virginia was one of 15 states to file a lawsuit against the Trump Administration to block the addition of a citizenship question on the 2020 decennial census. Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring referred to the citizenship question as a, “poison pill from the Trump administration [that] is about ideology, not accuracy.” He added that, “there is no question that this is just another attempt to intimidate and instill fear in immigrant communities,” according to The Washington Post.
The outcries originate from immigrant groups and Democratic lawmakers, those who will face the unfortunate fact of losing political power if undocumented immigrants refuse to respond to the census survey.
The lawsuit asserts that adding the question of citizenship violates the the Enumeration Clause of Article 1, Section 2 of the U.S. Constitution. The Constitution provides that the federal government conduct an “actual Enumeration” every 10 years to determine “the whole number of persons” in the United States to provide an accurate apportionment of representation in Congress.
Census numbers are not only used to determine the distribution of the number of seats in the U.S. House of Representatives, but the number of electoral college votes a state carries, and the apportionment of hundreds of billions of federal dollars each year.
Democrats and mayors of large cities charge that minority and immigrant populations are already among the hardest to accurately count. They claim that adding a citizenship question would reduce the response rate and would depart from the standard practice of researching and testing a new question for several years before officially adding it.
Although Democrats are up in arms about losing political power due to the Census, the outrage from their party has happened before, and not too long ago.
In 1999, the Supreme Court ruled with a 5-4 decision in U.S. Department of Commerce v. U.S. House of Representatives that the official Census for the year 2000 would be conducted by a traditional head count. The Court prohibited the use of statistical sampling that was planned by the Clinton Administration to prevent millions of Americans, disproportionately urban, liberal members of racial minority groups, from not being counted, as they had missed the last Census in 1980.
When the Republicans won control of Congress in 1994, one of their first aims was to prevent the Clinton Administration from using adjusted census figures for reappointment after 2000. They presumed the Clinton administration would tilt the count in favor of maintaining Democratic control of Congress. The Clinton Administration recognized that an undercount of racial minorities, immigrants, and low-income residents of large cities was likely so they planned a Census for the year 2000 that would include an adjustment for net census undercount.
The Republican majority, led by Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich refused to provide any funds for planning the next census if there were any studies that might generate counts adjusted for net undercount. Therefore, he filed a pre-emptive suit seeking a Supreme Court decision that would bar the use of adjusted census data for purposes of reapportionment.
The Court decided that there is a split distinction between the official census figures used to apportion seats in the House and statistical adjustments of figures used in the distribution of federal dollars to state programs. Although sampling is barred from apportionment of congressional representation, it is permitted and may be required for other purposes like monetary distribution.
In a report from the New York Times, the Court realized that federal law prohibited sampling to complete the census. The question for them was whether the constitution’s requirement of an “actual enumeration” makes the traditional head count mandatory.
In the 1990 census, although forms were mailed to households and follow-up visits were conducted on those who did not respond, nearly four million people were missed, 1.6 percent of the nation’s population. Justice Breyer, who dissented in the case, actually pointed out that the undercount would make little difference in the apportionment in Congress if it were spread evenly across the population.
However, the census disproportionately misses members of minority groups living in low-income areas, while double-counting affluent people who own more than one home. In 1990, one of the worst undercounted areas occurred in Manhattan, Brooklyn, and the Bronx, all represented by Democrats. Nevertheless, Texas, a Republican-controlled state, also supports sampling due to the fact they suffered similar disproportionate undercounts. One study claims that over 483,000 residents of Texas, 2.8 percent of the population, were missed. They explained that many of of the missed Texans were from Spanish-speaking towns near the border of Mexico.
In her majority opinion, Justice Sandra Day O’Connor explained that, “The instant dispute centers on the problem of ‘undercount’ in the decennial census. For the last few decades, the Bureau has sent census forms to every household, which it asked residents to complete and return. The Bureau followed up on the mailing by sending enumerators to personally visit all households that did not respond by mail. Despite this comprehensive effort to reach every household, the Bureau has always failed to reach-and has thus failed to count-a portion of the population. This shortfall has been labeled the census ‘undercount.”
Therefore, statistical sampling can be used in some cases, just not in representational apportionment.
Although the law governing the census specifically bars sampling, “except for the determination of population for apportionment purposes,” it is constitutionally mandated that a head count must be conducted to provide actual enumeration.
Considering that undocumented immigrants cannot vote, to provide for the actual enumeration and correct apportionment of representative in Congress, isn’t the question of citizenship quite important? Even if immigrants do not respond to the census, dollars will go to states because a statistical sample can still be used.
However, the fact is that Democrats are continuing to do what they have done in the past – power-grabbing. President Clinton was frightened by the Republican takeover of Congress in 1994 and to ward off the eventuality of more Republican lawmakers, he sought to apportion congressional representation by a statistical sample, one which would not have been accurate, but served his political purpose.
That is the same political fight that is happening now. Democrats only seek to help the people if their political interests and self-preservation are served first.
