Chief Justice John Roberts poses for the court’s official portrait in the East Conference Room at the Supreme Court building in Washington on Nov. 30, 2018.
Credit: Chip Somodevilla/Getty
By all indications, the Supreme Court is poised to let the Trump administration add a citizenship question to the 2020 census. The consequences of its probable ruling will last longer than Donald Trump’s presidency, well into the term of the next president, and possibly the one after that. Hispanics and immigrants will be undercounted, leading to overrepresentation in the House of Representatives and state legislatures of disproportionately white and rural regions. The result will entrench Republican power into the 2030s, depriving Democrats of representation in Congress and state legislatures, as well as electoral votes. States with large immigrant communities will lose billions in federal funding. Ultimately, the citizenship question is not some wonky dispute about proper census protocol. It is a dispute over who counts in America.
Here is the worst part: The Trump administration should have […]
I’ve tried my best to understand this issue, but am still not convinced that asking the citizen question is entirely a bad thing. As a scientist I see value in the data collected by this question, but also understand that the question could suppress the number of respondents and therefore result in non robust data sets. My question: if people in America trusted that answering this question honestly would not result in negative outcomes, would it still be a bad thing? It seems that the fear of responding honestly is what drives the issue here, so this is more of a trust issue that seems to be exploited to the GOP’s benefit if it works to suppress census responses. It would be great to hear thoughts on this one.