The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
How citizenship question was added to the census
WASHINGTON — Wilbur Ross had been Commerce secretary for less than three months, and he was growing impatient.
Ross 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 noth- ing 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 back- lash was immediate, with experts saying the question would deter immigrants and minorities from responding, leaving them badly under- counted. Lawsuits by state attorneys general, advocacy groups and a host of cities quickly followed.
Pressed on whether parti- san 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 unraveled.
Internal government docu- ments produced in the prin- cipal lawsuit on the issue, in New York, show Ross pres- sured the Justice Department to request the citizen- ship question, not the other story has since 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, an 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 today, 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 dispropor- tionately 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 fill- ing 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 minori- ties had voiced fears that the government would use citizenship information to persecute or even deport them.
“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 of the nonpartisan Census Proj- ect, an alliance of groups with a stake in an accurate popu- lation count. “This is a politi- cal and partisan move on the part of the Trump administration to try to stack the deck on the census.”
Asked for comment, the Commerce Department said this month that nothing in the documents contradicted the rationale Ross offered to Congress in March.