Citizenship and the Census

4/2/18
from The Wall Street Journal,
4/2/18:

Justice wants the data for more race-based gerrymandering.

The Trump Administration has decided to include a question about citizenship in the 2020 census, and Democrats are calling it an attempt to rig the count. That’s unlikely, and it ignores the real problem, which is that the White House is continuing the Obama Administration’s practice of politically weaponizing the Voting Rights Act. The Constitution mandates a survey of all U.S. residents every decade, and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross has wide discretion over the questions to ask. Researchers and lawmakers desire a wealth of data, but longer surveys reduce response rates. So the Census Bureau over the decades has truncated the survey to data necessary to administer federal laws and project population growth—such as gender, race, age, household size and home ownership.

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