Topic: The Census Bureau
“A new Administration should work to actively engage with conservative groups and voices to promote response to the decennial census. Promoting response to the decennial census will ensure that the most accurate counts are conducted, leading to a more accurate apportionment of congressional representation and allocation of federal funds. In 2020, lack of conservative participation was one factor in an undercount in some areas of the country, affecting representation of certain states.”
He’s advocating here for staffing the Census Bureau with political appointees to ensure that they “align with conservative principles.” I didn’t realize that collecting a census was a partisan affair, but apparently, the census helps dictate certain things, meaning he wants to juice the results to benefit Republicans. More about that in the analysis.
Full contextual analysis of Section 4.1: Department of Commerce here.
“Despite finding that the Trump Administration’s addition of the citizenship question to the 2020 decennial census violated the Administrative Procedures Act, the Supreme Court held that the Secretary of Commerce does have broad authority to add a citizenship question to the decennial census. Any successful conservative Administration must include a citizenship question in the census.”
Historically (prior to 1950), we’ve asked questions like this on the census. But historically, we didn’t have a candidate running who was promising to deport all immigrants, so this feels nefarious. The Constitution requires that the census taken every ten years must be a total “enumeration” and that has long been understood as counting everyone living in America at the time the census is performed – citizens and non-citizens, legal residents and immigrant residents living in the United States without legal permission.
“Critics say it’s a virtual lock that in the current political climate that non-citizens would think twice about taking part in the Census if they had to openly declare their citizenship status. That would exacerbate already significant issues with undercounting minorities that has an impact on funding and representation in past Census efforts.” [Source]
Trump failed to do this in 2020, but won’t again, with our current Supreme Court.
“The Supreme Court’s 5-to-4 ruling last Thursday had not barred the government from asking the question, but did order it to reconsider the plan after concluding that the reason given for it was “contrived” and “pretextual.”
The rationale that Secretary Ross and his aides had given repeatedly, especially in filings in the court cases brought by challengers, was that data gathered by asking the citizenship question would help the Justice Department in enforcing federal voting rights laws. The evidence in the case that went to the Supreme Court, the majority of Justices found, did not support that claim. [Source]
The source continues:
“It is not entirely clear where the idea to add the question originated in the Trump Administration, but there was evidence in the court cases that former White House aide Steve Bannon and a former outside adviser to the President, former Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, had pressed Secretary Ross to take the step.”
Yes, I’m sure Steve Bannon wanted all of this information about immigrants for perfectly innocent reasons.
The undercounting also benefits conservatives in other ways – if immigrants are too afraid to report, conservatives get to juice the House of Representatives:
“One of the principal claims of the challengers was that the presence of the citizenship question on census forms would discourage Hispanic households and those of non-citizens from responding, for fear that the disclosures would lead to the deportation of relatives or friends. The argument was that this refusal to respond would result in an “under-count” that might leave out 6 million or more people.
Since Hispanics and non-citizens are concentrated in larger states and larger cities, a significant under-count would probably lead to the loss of seats in the U.S. House of Representatives for states such as California, Florida and New York. Allocation of seats in the House is based, under the Constitution, on each state’s total population as counted in each census.”
Fewer seats in the house = fewer votes in the electoral college as well. This isn’t just me figuring it out – this was 100% the reason they wanted to do this.
Trump’s White House had internal memos circulating that detailed their plans. The House Oversight Committee released them with a report:
“Today’s Committee memo pulls back the curtain on this shameful conduct and shows clearly how the Trump Administration secretly tried to manipulate the census for political gain while lying to the public and Congress about their goals,” says Democratic Rep. Carolyn Maloney of New York, who chairs the House oversight committee and introduced the bill, in a statement. “It is clear that legislative reforms are needed to prevent any future illegal or unconstitutional efforts to interfere with the census and chip away at our democracy.”
Full contextual analysis of Section 4.1: Department of Commerce here.
“Government data should be unbiased and trusted—and an incoming conservative Administration should ensure that is the case.”
This is very rich, said right on the heels of a detailed plan to deliberately bias the census data.
Full contextual analysis of Section 4.1: Department of Commerce here.
“Abolish the National Advisory Committee and reevaluate all other committees. The Census Bureau National Advisory Committee on Racial, Ethnic, and Other Populations (NAC) was established by the Obama Administration in 2012 and rechartered by the Biden Administration in 2022. The committee is a hotbed for left-wing activists intent upon injecting racial and social-justice theory into the governing philosophy of the Census Bureau. The NAC should immediately be abolished by the incoming Administration.”
The NAC provides expert advice on how to address issues related to race, ethnicity, and other demographics in the Census. If this advisory body were eliminated, it could affect the way the Census Bureau collects, interprets, and uses data, as well as the broader societal implications.
Practically, this would result in less accurate data on minority populations, undercounting marginalized groups, reduce equity, influence congressional representation and funding (resulting in less political representation and funding for areas with large minority populations), and skew the data that Gilman claims should be “unbiased and trusted.”
Full contextual analysis of Section 4.1: Department of Commerce here.