Rep. Raskin: Constitution Mandates Census Includes All Persons, Not Just Citizens

Constitutional Mandate for Census Inclusion

• 📜 The Constitution, specifically Article One, mandates an appropriate allocation of House seats based on the whole number of persons in each state, not just citizens.
• 🎯 This principle ensures equal population in districts within each state and has been a cornerstone of American democracy for centuries.

Challenges to Census Accuracy and Integrity

• ⚠️ Claims that the 2020 census was rigged are baseless and politically motivated, akin to claims about the 2020 election being rigged.
• 📊 The Government Accountability Office (GAO) found the 2020 census accuracy consistent with previous censuses, though chronic undercounts of communities of color persisted.
• 🦠 The Census Bureau faced unprecedented challenges in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, inadequate government response, natural disasters, and budget cuts from the first Trump administration.

Trump Administration's Attempts to Undermine the Census

• 🗳️ The first Trump administration repeatedly sought to undermine the census accuracy, notably by attempting to add a citizenship question, which experts warned would depress participation.
• ⚖️ The Supreme Court thwarted the citizenship question effort, finding the administration's stated reasons to be contrived and contrary to law.
• 🚫 Trump later instructed the Commerce Department to exclude undocumented immigrants from the census count, a policy rejected by courts as unconstitutional and contrary to 230 years of history.

Legal and Political Attacks on Census Practices

• 🏛️ Meritless lawsuits have been filed challenging the constitutionality of counting all residents, regardless of citizenship status, and questioning practices like group quarters count imputation and differential privacy.
• 🧩 These lawsuits are part of a coordinated strategy to undermine the apportionment count and weaponize the census for partisan advantage.
• 🚩 The speaker urges rejection of this dangerous direction, emphasizing that a constitutional census should not be an instrument of partisan conflict.