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This Week’s Supreme Court Case Could Decide the 2024 Election

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Elderberry:
Daily Beast by Jay Michaelson 04.22.19

It’s no exaggeration to say the census question could decide the 2024 election, and that’s what’s at stake as the Supreme Court takes up Department of Commerce v. New York.

If the Trump administration succeeds in adding the question “Are you a U.S. Citizen?” to the 2020 census, the Census Bureau estimates that 6.5 million people won’t respond to the census at all.

Most of those will be Hispanics or people with immigrants in their families who are fearful of exposing themselves or their family members to deportation, investigation, or worse. According to a Harvard University study, between 7.7 and 9.1 percent of Hispanics will skip the census entirely.

And that, in turn, will lead to fewer representatives in the House from states with large Hispanic populations—like California, New York, Illinois, Arizona, and Texas—and, accordingly, fewer electors in the electoral college to choose a president.

It’s no exaggeration to say that the 2024 election could be decided on the basis of this census question.

That’s what’s at stake this week as the Supreme Court takes up the case of Department of Commerce v. New York, representing four challenges to the citizenship question.

As we’ve learned over the course of those lawsuits, these anti-democratic effects of the question aren’t unintended consequences: they’re the whole reason it’s in there. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, whose department oversees the census, lied about the reasons for the change, failed to follow the law on making it, and illegally ignored the opinion of the Census Bureau itself, which urged him against it.

If true (as several lower courts have found), these are violations both of administrative law and of Article I, Sections 1 and 2 of the Constitution, which provides that for the purposes of determining congressional representation, “The actual Enumeration shall be made within three Years after the first Meeting of the Congress of the United States, and within every subsequent Term of ten Years, in such Manner as they shall by Law direct."

The “Enumeration Clause,” as it is known, has been held to require the government to get the best count possible. Here, however, Ross and his minions went against the advice of their own department, their own experts, and five previous directors of the census bureau (Republicans and Democrats alike), who said that the citizenship question would lead to an inaccurate count of how many people reside in the United States.

More: https://www.thedailybeast.com/department-of-commerce-v-new-york-supreme-court-case-could-decide-2024-election-9

Sanguine:
No, it's probably not an exaggeration.

Victoria33:

--- Quote from: Sanguine on April 23, 2019, 01:27:11 am ---No, it's probably not an exaggeration.

--- End quote ---
@Sanguine
@mystery-ak

The census has come up before and I said I worked in the census many years ago.  That was driving to my designated area, parking and walking house to house or driving to one house, then driving to another half a mile away, etc.  In those days, no one objected to answering the questions on the forms.  I don't know how it is done today, but no way would I go to a house where I didn't know the people.  Maybe it is all done on line?

If they put the question, "Are you a citizen of the United States?", on there and people have the physical form, the non-citizens will not return the form, will not fill out the form, will throw away the form, will burn the form, will turn it into mush with water in a blender, would use the form as the target for their darts, their BB guns, their Remington shot guns, their Semi-automatic Ruger handguns with extended magazines, their 9mm whatever brand with extended magazines.

Do not put the question there and get a count of people.
Put the question on there and not get a count of people.

Right_in_Virginia:

--- Quote from: Victoria33 on April 23, 2019, 02:42:42 am ---@Sanguine
@mystery-ak

If they put the question, "Are you a citizen of the United States?", on there and people have the physical form, the non-citizens will not return the form, will not fill out the form, will throw away the form, will burn the form, will turn it into mush with water in a blender, would use the form as the target for their darts, their BB guns, their Remington shot guns, their Semi-automatic Ruger handguns with extended magazines, their 9mm whatever brand with extended magazines.

Do not put the question there and get a count of people.
Put the question on there and not get a count of people.

--- End quote ---

We're not looking for the number of people.  Based on how this census is used, we're looking for an accurate count of citizens.  Only citizens should determine the number of representatives---and the districts---within any given state.  Illegals shouldn't count toward subsidies, federal money and certainly not voting precincts.

BTW, both Clinton and Obama asked this question.

Elderberry:
@Victoria33

It must of been for the 1980 Census. My household(just me) was selected for an employment survey. The census taker would come out once a week and ask me the same questions. I was salary so the answers were the same every time. It took over a month to complete.

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