Stand up and be counted… or else
30th April 2019 · 0 Comments
Just as Paul Revere’s midnight ride to warn American colonists of the British coming and the pending American Revolutionary War, so too is a clarion call going out about the 2020 Census. The Trump Administration wants to add a citizenship question: “Is this person a citizen of the United States?”
As it is now, many Americans dodge the Census, which counts everyone in the U.S. for a variety of reasons: They don’t want to be found; they don’t want the federal government in their business; and they don’t want their personal data sold or stolen; etc.
As the saying goes, “All politics is local,” so when it comes to the 2020 Census, New Orleanians need to step up and be counted; if they want our city to get its fair share of federal dollars, equitable district lines drawn to represent all citizens in the state legislature and the U.S. Congress, and a record of a citizen’s existence that can be used by ensuring generations to track their lineage.
Onlookers may be forgiven for mistakenly thinking that the “citizenship question” is Trump’s strategy to flush out illegal immigrants and deport them. Adding the question “Is this person a citizen of the United States?,” can identify foreign nationals, undocumented migrants, and others, however, the real danger of not being counted is that an undercount can be used to take away Congressional and state legislature seats, limit federal funds to various cities, swing electoral college votes, suppress the vote, and stack the deck against people of color and the poor, and diminish the quality of life in many states.
Some observers say Trump and his minions want to water-down the electoral impact of sanctuary states such as California and New York.
Reports are that Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross discussed the citizenship question with immigration hardliners including Steve Bannon, then the White House chief strategist, and the former Kansas secretary of state Kris Kobach before getting the Department of Justice to make the request.
New York Attorney General Letitia James weighed in on the Supreme Court’s deliberation on the Trump Administration’s request to add the citizenship question to the 2020 U.S. Census form. James is the first African American and first woman to be elected to the position. She previously served for a decade as a member of the New York City Council; the first Black woman to hold citywide office. In addition to fighting to protect New York citizens’ constitutional rights, James has also launched investigations into several Trump entities.
James told Ari Melber on his MSNBC Show, The Beat, that an accurate count of everyone in the U.S. is “key to apportionment and key to the distribution of federal funds.” James was at the Supreme Court’s hearing on the citizenship question.
News analysts are speculating that the Supreme Court will vote 5-4 in favor of the question. The last time the question was on the Census was in 1950 and it was subsequently removed. So, the view that Trump wants to revert back to the U.S. of the 1950s is clearly a part of his mission.
There’s no doubt that people will respond less to the census if it includes the question, Justice Sotomayor said. Justice Elena Kagan said the need for a citizenship question is a “contrived one.”
The Brennan Center recently explained what’s at stake if the Census results reflect an undercount:
Census numbers are used for funding social services… things like schools, healthcare, and roads. There are problems that arise when a community goes undercounted. For example, when Congress and the states are deciding whether to give money to a community, they could say, “Oh, we don’t need to build another school there,” because the schoolchildren in that community are undercounted. It’s the same with infrastructure. They might think, “Well, maybe we don’t need to replace the bridge there.” But they would be underestimating how many people use that bridge every day. Census numbers are also used to apportion our political representatives. If you go undercounted, you could lose political representation in your state legislature and in Congress.
“Population counts from the 2020 census will determine how many congressional seats and Electoral College votes each state gets for the next decade. The data also guide the distribution of an estimated $880 billion a year in federal funding for schools, roads and other public services,” according to a National Public Radio report.
Thus far, 18 states have sued the Trump Administration for going forward with what can only been seen as a effort to maintain white Republican rule and keep the balance of power in the hands of a political party controlled primarily by white men. The overall goal of the citizenship question is to suppress the vote and cause cities to lose congressional seats. “Illinois may lose two congressional seats, an Illinois congressman said recently.
Considering this latest threat to our Constitutional Rights, including equal representation, African Americans should be worried about not answering the Census or being counted, particularly in New Orleans, a city that is 60 percent African American.
New Orleans lost at least 100,000 during Katrina and while estimates are that at least 75 percent of those have returned, an undercount will encourage more gerrymandering of our Congressional districts. To date, Louisiana only has one person of color in the U.S. Congress, U.S. Representative Cedric Richmond.
The U.S. Supreme Court will decide in June 2019, if the citizenship question will be added.
However, there is no time to wait for another of Trump’s repressive policies to be enshrined into law. Everyday people of color in New Orleans and everyone who resides here and want to see infrastructure, sewerage, and other improvements must stand up and be counted.
To that end, State Representative Jimmie Harris’ office is huddling with neighborhood groups and residents to mount “An answer the Census campaign.”
The Louisiana Weekly stands ready to inform and support State Rep. Harris’ campaign. We’re here for that.
This article originally published in the April 29, 2019 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.
