House GOP passes bill to add citizenship question to census

House Republicans passed a bill Wednesday that would add a citizenship question to the decennial census, revisiting an issue the Supreme Court blocked in 2019.

The bill, entitled the Equal Representation Act, passed the floor on a party-line vote of 206-202.

The measure would direct the Census Bureau to add a question to the 10-year survey asking about the citizenship status of respondents, requiring the U.S. to consider only citizens when determining the number of House seats each state receives. Thing.

Targeting this allocation would give Republicans a way to cut the influence of populous, liberal-leaning states like California.

“States and cities that violate federal immigration law and maintain sanctuary policies should not be rewarded with more seats in Congress,” House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) said in a statement after the vote. . He said, “Common sense dictates that only American citizens should be eligible for electoral distribution, and the Equal Representation Act guarantees that.”

But adding this question raises concerns that response rates to the census will drop. The national census is mandated by the Constitution to count “the total number of free persons.”

Governments and nonprofit organizations have spent years educating non-citizens to encourage noncitizens to respond to the census, noting that census participation is never the basis for immigration enforcement.

Democrats slammed the bill as an attack on immigrant communities.

“A national-only census, as this bill contemplates, is reckless, cynical, and frankly illegal,” Rep. Grace Meng of New York said Wednesday on the House floor. Ta. “It’s not the Census Bureau’s job to track immigration status.”

in Administrative policy statement In the bill, announced this week, the Biden administration says it “strongly opposes” any measure that would “prevent the Department of Commerce and the Census Bureau from fulfilling its constitutional responsibility to count the U.S. population in the decennial census.” Stated.

In pursuing this initiative, the House is seeking to enforce a measure first introduced by the Trump administration, but later blocked by the Supreme Court.

Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross made a last-minute effort to add this question to the 2020 Census, ignoring the advice of Census Bureau experts, endorsing the question as a key priority for then-President Trump. did.

But the Trump administration was unable to justify the move amid legal challenges, with Chief Justice John Roberts ruling that the government had given “contrived” answers about the government’s motives for adding the question, ultimately leading to a high court decision. The case was defeated in court.