The Future of Our Census

With the Supreme Court poised to issue an astronomically important ruling regarding the census, it’s worth examining how important the census actually is.

The census isn’t just another Buzzfeed personality quiz you take while avoiding work. It’s a way for the government to analyze the varying demographics in each region, which then allows them to carefully reapportion House seats as well as federal funding and taxes. Our representation–the very essence of our constitution–is based on the results of the census. In short, it affects almost every part of our life from our political values to our tax forms to whether or not we can build more highways that’ll get us faster to work. However, this crucial survey is on the brink of being discriminatorily skewed due to conservative efforts to add a citizenship question to the census.

The Trump administration trying to push the citizenship question will no doubt decrease the number of respondents. Justice Sonia Sotomayor affirmed, “If you’re talking about prediction, this is about 100 percent that people will answer less.” Census officials estimate that around 6.5 million people will be discouraged from completing the census, especially the states and urban areas with densely populated Hispanic and immigrant communities. As there is a high correlation of these communities voting Democratic, this will adversely harm civic engagement and voter turnout. A subtle power flex on the conservatives’ part, and if the citizenship question passes, it will unethically distort voter representation. This is a clear attempt on the part of the Trump administration to take representative power away from densely populated Democratic areas and redistribute it to Republican states.

Furthermore, the Supreme Court, the ultimate decision-maker of this case, is currently leaning conservative. After Trump appointed Justice Kavanaugh, the political divide tipped to right, giving Trump more leverage to his controversial initiatives. While conservatives argue that adding the citizenship question will enforce the Voting Rights Act, lawyers like Dale Ho of the American Civil Liberties have outspoken about how this claim is simply not true. Kavanaugh has also suggested that the United Nations recommends asking a citizenship question on the survey, but the reality is that citizenship is a sensitive question for Americans especially with threats of deportation becoming ever more serious. The question was taken out in 1950 to increase compliance rates, so to revert back is begging for lower participation, which is the end game for most conservative legislators. With an administration devoted to sowing fear and mistrust among immigrant communities, this is simply the latest example.

This is yet another painful reminder that elections have consequences. When Democrats lost the Presidency in 2016, we missed the chance to fill the seats currently occupied by Justice Gorsuch and Justice Kavanaugh. When we lost seats in the Senate, we lost our opportunity to block judges who seek to force a conservative-activist agenda on America, rather than upholding precedent and the Constitution.

We cannot stand idly by and powerlessly take the blow simply because there is a conservative majority on the Supreme Court. We must contact our Congressional representatives and voice our concern against this initiative, or we may witness the undercount of millions of votes in the 2020 election race. Most of all, make sure to vote in every election. It is our constitutional duty and has far-reaching consequences. Let’s work together to withstand those who seek to diminish our voices.