New 2020 Census Question Could Lead To Undercount In Texas

If a citizenship question is added to the Census, nearly 1.1 million Hispanics in Texas would be undercounted in 2020, according to an analysis by The Washington Post.

The Post’s analysis was done in collaboration with the Harvard Shorestein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy. A study published by the center found that adding the question could lead to an undercount of 12 percent of the Hispanic population or 6 million people, the Post writes.

After the Trump administration announced plans in March 2018 to add the question to the 2020 Census, the American Civil Liberties Union sued the government. The Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the case in late April and the justices are expected to hand down their decision later this month.

The New York Times recently reported that Tom Hofeller, a man known for his role in gerrymandering efforts that have helped Republicans win elections in recent years, played a crucial role in the decision to add the question to the Census, based on hard drives his daughter found in his home. Hofeller died in 2018.

A 2015 study by Hofeller said the question would allow Republicans to draw even more gerrymandered maps, according to the Times. He also wrote a portion of a draft DOJ letter that said the question was better needed to enforce the Voting Rights Act, according to the Times. When the Department of Commerce announced that the citizenship question would be added to the 2020 Census, it said it was to help enforce the 1965 law.

The ACLU took the new evidence to court and a judge agreed that the allegations were serious but did not immediately decide on whether to sanction Trump officials as the plaintiffs had asked the court to consider, according to The Washington Post.

Here are the states where an undercount would have the biggest impact, according to the Post:

Arizona (362,496 or 4.9 percent of the population)
California (1,843,035 or 4.6 percent of the population)
Texas (1,147,650 or 3.9 percent of the population)
New Mexico (76,333 or 3.6 percent of the population)
Colorado (201,467 or 3.4 percent of the population)
Nevada (85,698 or 2.7 percent of the population)
Florida (601,803 or 2.7 percent of the population)
New York (454,095 or 2.3 percent of the population)
New Jersey (182,101 or 2 percent of the population)

In their legal complaint, the ACLU said the plan “is a naked act of intentional discrimination directed at immigrant communities of color that is intended to punish their presence, avoid their recognition, stunt their growing political power, and deprive them and the communities in which they live of economic benefits.”

The ACLU said that the Trump administration’s policies towards immigrants have discouraged these communities from interacting with the government. The group also argued that adding the question would result in an inaccurate Census that fails to achieve its constitutional objective of counting the total number of “persons” living in the United States.

An undercount could lead to communities losing government funding and political representation, the ACLU argues.

While the government has argued that the question is needed for better data to enforce the Voting Rights Act, the ACLU notes in the legal complaint that the act has been enforced for more than 50 years with no citizenship question.