How Commerce’s Ross shaped census debate
Trump’s secretary promised to negotiate trade deals, but citizenship question for 2020 count became his chief priority
WWASHINGTON ilbur Ross had been Commerce secretary for less than three months, and he was growing impatient. The billionaire investor entered office promising to renegotiate trade deals. But he had another, less visible priority: adding a question about citizenship status to the 2020 census, which the Commerce Department supervises.
“I am mystified that nothing has been done in response to my months-old request that we include the citizenship question,” he groused in a May 2017 email to an aide tapped out on his iPhone. “Why not?”
Ross’ tenacity paid off. In March he announced that the next census would in fact ask respondents whether they are U.S. citizens. The backlash was immediate, with experts saying the question would deter immigrants and minorities from responding, leaving them badly undercounted. Lawsuits by state attorneys general, advocacy groups and a host of cities quickly followed.
Pressed on whether partisan politics colored consideration of the question, Ross said in sworn testimony to Congress in March that he was responding “solely” to a Justice Department request for data to enforce the 1965 Voting Rights Act. He also said he knew of no talks with the White House about the matter. But that story has since unraveled. Internal government documents produced in the principal lawsuit on the issue, in New York, show Ross pressured the Justice Department to request the citizenship question, not the other way around. They also show the involvement of President Donald Trump’s chief strategist at the time, Steve Bannon, in the discussions. After Bannon requested that Ross “talk to someone about the census,” Ross met with Kris Kobach, a fierce immigration opponent whom Trump had appointed to a panel on voter fraud.
The federal judge in the main lawsuit ordered Ross to testify under oath, stating that “his intent and credibility are directly at issue,” but last month the Supreme Court at least temporarily blocked the testimony. Another deposition of a senior Justice Department official who worked with Ross on the question went ahead as scheduled.
The lawsuit, which goes to trial Monday, could have profound ramifications. Census figures determine not only where hundreds of billions of dollars in federal funds are spent, but how the House of Representatives — and by extension, the Electoral College — and other political districts are remapped every decade to reflect population changes. Because immigrants and minorities disproportionately vote Democratic, a depressed head count could also expand Republican Party control when new political boundaries are drawn in 2021. While Ross has insisted that there is no clear evidence that the citizenship question would deter people from filling out census forms, the Census Bureau’s own researchers repeatedly have found just that. In a memo last fall and in summaries of focus groups this spring, they noted that a wide range of ethnic minorities had voiced fears that the government would use citizenship information to persecute or even deport them — and one group with Vietnamese heritage even abandoned a focus group after learning that the next census would ask about citizenship.
“There’s no question that reapportionment would be affected by a citizenship question, and it’s hard to believe the administration doesn’t know it,” said Phil Sparks, a codirector of the nonpartisan Census Project, an alliance of groups with a stake in an accurate population count. “This is a political and partisan move on the part of the Trump administration to try to stack the deck on the census.”
Many critics see the question as the opening volley in an emerging conservative campaign to eliminate noncitizens entirely from population counts used for redistricting. The 14th Amendment requires the House to be apportioned based on “the whole number of persons in each state,” and the Supreme Court has long ruled that the “whole number” includes noncitizens.
Asked for comment, the Commerce Department said this month that nothing in the documents contradicted the rationale Ross offered to Congress in March.
“Executive branch officials discussing important issues prior to formulating policy is evidence of good government,” a department spokesman, Kevin Manning, said. The court documents “reinforce that executive branch officials worked together to ensure that Secretary Ross received all of the information necessary to make an informed decision.”
Ross sought help early on the citizenship question. But when Earl Comstock, Ross’ head of policy and strategic planning, asked the Justice Department, he was rebuffed by its top immigration law adviser, James McHenry.