Every Person Counts! (But Only If They Let You)
Every ten years, the US census counts the country’s population for congressional apportionment, as required by Article I and the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution. What happens when the government starts changing who counts?
The Trump administration recently announced a new proposal, calling for the exclusion of noncitizens without lawful permanent resident status from the count used to apportion House seats. The argument here rests on Section 2 of the Fourteenth Amendment, which unmistakably mandates apportionment of representatives according to states’ respective populations: “counting the whole number of persons in each State.” There is no discrimination based on a person’s documentation status, immigration status, long-term residency, or any other category of people within the Constitution. An accurate count of each person in every state is not viable if any conditions of discrimination exist; hence, the Constitution prohibits it. Through this reform, the Trump administration moves to deny the longstanding practice of including citizens and noncitizens who usually reside in the United States in the apportionment population.
The Trump administration’s reforms also move to revoke race and ethnicity questions from the 2030 census questionnaire completely. The Census Bureau argues that these questions are of a “sensitive nature” and that the information they collect is unnecessary on the decennial questionnaire. Trump’s administration is moving to repeal the census’s time-honored process of collecting race data, dating back to 1790.
The importance of this issue may not be immediately apparent; does removing racial classification not support values of equality? Does the US federal government not have the authority to determine who qualifies as a resident for apportionment? The census does more than just count populations: its results shape political representation and guide public policy. Racial and ethnic data are used by federal, state, local, and tribal governments to administer programs and monitor compliance with civil rights and anti-discrimination laws. Governments also use racial and ethnic data collected by the census to monitor compliance with the Voting Rights Act and other anti-discrimination regulations. More specifically, this data helps the government draw districts that allow minority voters to elect candidates of their choice, and ensure voting materials are language accessible for the necessary communities. This reform does not, in fact, promote values of equality; rather, it threatens to regrow systemic discrimination and prejudice in areas of the government that census population counting has long protected. Evidently, this data collected by the census is not intended to infringe on or encroach upon the privacy of the public, but if the government knows who is living in the US, it can help protect those people.
Beyond the constitutional question, the accurate counting of every person in each US state holds significant political implications. Every ten years, census population counts determine how the 435 seats in the House of Representatives are apportioned among the states. Changing which citizens the Census considers to have a qualifying “usual residence” for apportionment will alter the reality of a state’s population, which can have negative impacts on federal funding for essential services pertaining to health, education, and infrastructure and threaten appropriate government representation for affected areas.
The administration is attempting to organize the documentation status of each individual in the United States by altering deep-rooted practices of the US census. These proposed changes have the ability to affect communities across the US, though the Trump administration’s proposal has already drawn opposition from advocacy organizations and is expected to face legal challenges. The federal government should undoubtedly continue counting all usual residents for apportionment and collecting race and ethnicity data, while addressing immigration-status questions separately. Furthermore, the Census Bureau should explain that it uses individual responses to produce population statistics for representation and public policy, while federal law protects the confidentiality of those responses. Who makes up the “persons” in the US is already written into our Constitution, and we cannot let this administration erase that truth.
Image Credit
Digital Commonwealth, via Rawpixel
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