POLITICS SCOTUS Census Citizenship

Discussion in 'Politicants' started by Tenacious D, Apr 24, 2019.

  1. Tenacious D

    Tenacious D The law is of supreme importance, or no importance

    An important case involving the inclusion of a question on American citizenship will soon be decided by SCOTUS, having already been heard.

    Case Summary / Prospectus
    Liberals Respond (see if you can spot the common link for many of these groups):
    Why it’s important / what’s at stake:
    The inclusion of the question seems like only one piece of a potentially larger issue:
    The Court’s ruling is expected to be announced in late June.

    Interesting stuff, but it’s possible that even a favorable ruling may / may not have much of an impact, if any at all.

    That the American census would first require the assurances of self-avowed American citizenship seems entirely reasonable. I’m not at all sure as to why we’d ever stopped requiring it, tbh.

    Link: https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/04/census-citizenship-question-george-soros-funding/
  2. NorrisAlan

    NorrisAlan Super Moderator

    I have no issues with this, nor do I understand why anyone without some sort of pro-illegal immigrant stance would be against it. As far as I know, you fill out the census on line and there is no one there looking to see if you have a valid ID that will show you are a US citizen.

    I am not sure what this will do, ultimately, because if an illegal immigrant actually wants to fill out the census form, they will still do so and simply check mark the US Citizen box.
  3. cpninja

    cpninja Member

    My understanding is this has a few issues: Non-citizens are permitted to fill out the census(whose purpose is to count ALL persons living in the US, legal or illegal), and adding that question might scare non-citizens off from doing so, due to that information theoretically having the potential to be shared with ICE(or other relevant groups). This leads to an undercount in certain areas which has ramifications for political clout and funding of certain programs. And the second is that non-citizens might claim they are citizens anyway which leads to an overcount of legal citizens in a given area and dilutes the quality of data gathered by the census. Apparently the Census Bureau has other surveys that do include citizenship status and thus there is no reason to push it onto the decennial census(and there is a history of removing unnecessary questions from the generic census to improve response rates), as all it does is potentially disrupt the accuracy of the decennial census(and score political brownie points with certain groups)
  4. Tenacious D

    Tenacious D The law is of supreme importance, or no importance

    I’d agree that this is a fair and accurate summation of the arguments opposed to adding the question of citizenship.

    The conservative justices seemed to lean toward allowing the question to be asked, in saying:

    Accept Data as Necessary to enforce Voting Rights Act*:
    Demographic Data Already Required / Added:
    Law Allows Commerce Secretary Discretion:
    Question Validity of Lower Response Estimates / Not Improper to Ask
    I can’t cite the exact comment, but at one point Justice Kavanaugh challenged Congress to pass a law which prohibited the question from being asked, if they wish it to be excluded. In tasking the Legislative Branch with actually legislating, Kavanaugh likely gave the conservative justices plenty of room to safely stand in allowing it, as they needn’t the Court’s help in prevent the question from being asked, when Congress cod simply do the same, themselves.

    I’m still stuck on being shocked / perturbed by the fact that states with higher percentages of illegal immigrants not only receive more federal funding, but also gain a significant advantage via a disproportionate representation in both the House and in the Electoral College. I don’t at all believe this to be fair, and which shouldn’t surprise anyone, really.

    * Both the Justices and Dems seem quick to dismiss the enforcement of Voting Rights Act as being little more than a convenient cover for the desire to include this question on the census. I wouldn’t be so certain of that.

    Link: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-...-on-census-citizenship-question-idUSKCN1RZ0X9

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