WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senators Andy Kim (D-NJ), Ranking Member of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee’s Subcommittee on the Census, and Gary Peters (D-MI), Ranking Member of the full Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, led a bipartisan group of 24 colleagues urging the U.S. Census Bureau to rescind a proposed rule that would exclude certain non-citizens from census counts and eliminate questions on race and ethnicity.
In their letter, the Senators warn that the exclusion of non-citizens violates the Constitution, which expressly says that the census must count the “whole number of persons in each state.” The Bureau has proposed two methods by which it would exclude non-citizens, both of which would cause undercounts and errors in the census counts.
“We write to urge that you rescind your proposed rule that would exclude certain non-citizens from decennial census counts and omit questions about race and ethnicity from the decennial census. The proposed rule violates the clear meaning of the Constitution, which requires that the Census Bureau count the ‘whole number of persons in each state.’ The proposed rule would also cause communities across the country to be counted inaccurately, jeopardizing their fair representation in Congress and access to billions of federal dollars for education, health care, and public safety services,” the senators wrote.
The letter also describes how the Bureau’s proposal to eliminate race and ethnicity questions would undermine the enforcement of civil and voting rights laws and would degrade the quality of all census data. The compliance of civil and voting rights laws rely on demographic data, and only the decennial census provides accurate and precise data. Additionally, eliminating the collection of race and ethnicity data from the decennial census undermines other federal survey data. Businesses and local governments that depend on such data have said that they would be harmed by this proposed rule.
“In its attempt to undermine the data used for the enforcement of civil and voting rights laws, the Bureau will degrade the accuracy of all other federal survey data, particularly for small and rural geographic areas. The Bureau writes in its own regulatory filing that the proposed rule ‘deteriorates the accuracy’ of ‘fertility/mortality rates, cancer rates, poverty rates, unemployment rates, [and] labor force participation’ because the Bureau relies on accurate decennial census information to adjust and design other survey estimates,” the senators continued. “The Bureau also admits in its filing that the proposal would hamper the usability of data for state and local governments who rely on precise and accurate population estimates for small geographic areas. Businesses and local governments that depend on reliable and complete federal data have warned that the Census Bureau’s proposal would increase costs as data is degraded.”
The full text of the letter is available here.
Joining Senators Kim and Peters in sending the letter were Senators Chuck Schumer (D-NY), Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV), Tammy Duckworth (D-IL), John Fetterman (D-PA), Ruben Gallego (D-AZ), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), Maggie Hassan (D-NH), Martin Heinrich (D-NM), Mazie Hirono (D-HI), Mark Kelly (D-AZ), Angus King (I-ME), Jeff Merkley (D-OR), Patty Murray (D-WA), Jack Reed (D-RI), Jacky Rosen (D-NV), Brian Schatz (D-HI), Elissa Slotkin (D-MI), Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), Raphael Warnock (D-GA), Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), and Ron Wyden (D-OR).
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