WASHINGTON—One week before U.S. Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross is due to issue his decision on whether to include a mandatory question about respondents’ citizenship status in the 2020 U.S. Census, leading legal organizations focusing on the U.S. Constitution’s text and history, the protection of civil rights, and on our democracy sent a letter calling on Secretary Ross to reject such a question.

“Adding the new citizenship question proposed by the Department of Justice would undermine the Census Bureau’s constitutional commitment to count all persons,” the letter reads, in part. “It would also result in inaccurate data, thereby biasing congressional apportionment, redistricting, and funding decisions, for an entire decade, and producing harmful inequalities which would last even longer.”

The full letter, which can be read here, was signed by Asian Americans Advancing Justice, Campaign Legal Center, Democracy Forward, Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund, Inc., United To Protect Democracy, and Voting Rights Institute, in addition to Constitutional Accountability Center.

CAC President Elizabeth Wydra said, “All persons deserve equal representation in our government, and the Constitution explicitly requires an ‘actual Enumeration’ of the people. This attempt by the Justice Department to persuade Commerce Secretary Ross to game the Census should be flatly rejected.”

CAC Civil Rights Director David Gans, author of an Issue Brief released this month exploring the text and history of the Constitution’s Census Clause, continued, “Our nation’s founding charter requires a national count of all persons in the decennial Census, regardless of country of origin or immigration status. It is critical that Secretary Ross reject a mandatory citizenship question on the 2020 Census. To do otherwise would be an end-run around the Constitution’s text, history, and values, while doing real damage to America’s democracy.”

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Resources:

Letter to Secretary Ross on behalf of leading legal organizations, “Reject Mandatory Citizenship Question on 2020 Census,” March 22, 2018: https://www.theusconstitution.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/CAC-Census-Letter-Groups.pdf

The Cornerstone of our Democracy: The Census Clause and the Constitutional Obligation to Count All Persons, David Gans, CAC Issue Brief, March 19, 2018: https://www.theusconstitution.org/think_tank/cornerstone-democracy-census-clause-constitutional-obligation-count-persons/

“Count all the people, just as the Constitution says,” David Gans, San Antonio Express-News, March 9, 2018: https://www.mysanantonio.com/opinion/commentary/article/Count-all-the-people-just-as-the-Constitution-12742298.php

CAC Letter to Wilbur Ross, U.S. Secretary of Commerce: Census Citizenship Question “Threatens to Undermine Your Constitutional Duty,” February 15, 2018: https://www.theusconstitution.org/news/release-letter-secretary-ross-census-citizenship-question-threatens-undermine-constitutional-duty/

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Now in our tenth year, Constitutional Accountability Center is a think tank, public interest law firm, and action center dedicated to fulfilling the progressive promise of the Constitution’s text and history. Visit the new CAC website at www.theusconstitution.org

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