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wilbur ross
Docs Expose Trump's 'Illegal' Effort to Help GOP by Weaponizing Census
"It is clear that legislative reforms are needed to prevent any future illegal or unconstitutional efforts to interfere with the census and chip away at our democracy," said the House Committee on Oversight and Reform chair.
Jul 20, 2022
A U.S. House of Representatives panel probing the Trump administration's attempt to add a citizenship question to the 2020 census on Wednesday released a memorandum underscoring that the failed effort was politically motivated.
"The documents ultimately obtained by the committee... shed additional light on the depth of partisan manipulation in the 2020 census."
The memo focuses on documents that were finally shared with the panel in January after former President Donald Trump's commerce secretary and attorney general, Wilbur Ross and William Barr, were held in contempt of Congress for refusing to turn over requested materials.
"The documents ultimately obtained by the committee--including the legal memorandum prepared for Secretary Ross and secret communications between Trump administration lawyers and political appointees--shed additional light on the depth of partisan manipulation in the 2020 census, including senior officials' focus on using a citizenship question to alter apportionment counts and their illegal attempt to develop a pretext," the memo states.
"These documents exposed the vulnerability of our national statistical system to partisan manipulation and highlighted the need for Congress to protect the constitutionally mandated census from abuses of power and political interference," the memo continues.
\u201c.@GOPOversight disagrees with six former U.S. Census Bureau directors, dozens of experts and researchers, and the U.S. CONSTITUTION.\n\nAdding a citizenship question to the U.S. Census for apportionment purposes is unconstitutional and illegal, period.\u201d— Oversight Committee (@Oversight Committee) 1658329594
As the panel's report lays out, the documents from the departments of Commerce and Justice (DOJ) show that:
- Contrary to Secretary Ross' testimony to Congress, congressional apportionment was central to his efforts to add a citizenship question;
- The initial draft of the legal memo warned that using a citizenship question for apportionment would likely violate the Constitution;
- Commerce officials downplayed legal concerns and altered the memo to suggest the citizenship question could be used for apportionment;
- Even as they developed a pretext, Trump administration officials privately admitted their "hook" was that the president or Congress could decide to use citizenship data for apportionment; and
- Secretary Ross secretly steered DOJ towards the pretextual rationale.
"Lest anyone doubted that what the Trump administration was up to was wrong, these documents show that even the Trump administration itself knew that what it was doing was illegal," Thomas Wolf, deputy director of the Democracy Program at the Brennan Center for Justice, told The Washington Post on Wednesday.
Civil rights groups have long slammed the Trump administration's push for inserting a citizenship question into the census--which informs the allocation of federal funding and the drawing of political voting maps--as a bid to benefit Republican candidates for office.
John C. Yang, president and executive director of Asian Americans Advancing Justice - AAJC, one of the groups that challenged the Trump effort, nodded to that critique on Wednesday.
"The documents released today demonstrate the depths to which political actors sought to corrupt a basic function enumerated in the Constitution: the counting of all people in America every 10 years," Yang told The New York Times. "Secretary Ross chose to pursue his political goals through whatever means available."
Both the committee's memo and chair, Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.), pointed to the findings as further evidence of the need for reforms--specifically those included in the Ensuring a Fair and Accurate Census Act that she introduced last week.
\u201cWe applaud @RepMaloney\u2019s recognition of Congress\u2019s oversight of the census and the need to limit the possibility of future interference.\n\nWe look forward to working with her and her office to reform the census and restore public confidence in the @uscensusbureau's vital work.\u201d— The Leadership Conference (@The Leadership Conference) 1658338210
"For years, the Trump administration delayed and obstructed the oversight committee's investigation into the true reason for adding a citizenship question to the 2020 census, even after the Supreme Court ruled the administration's efforts were illegal," Maloney said in a statement Wednesday.
Though the high court's 2019 decision effectively blocked the inclusion of the citizenship question and a federal court ruled against a July 2020 Trump memorandum intended to exclude undocumented immigrants from the census, a government analysis confirmed this year that minorities were significantly undercounted.
Maloney said that the committee's new memo "pulls back the curtain on this shameful conduct and shows clearly how the Trump administration secretly tried to manipulate the census for political gain while lying to the public and Congress about their goals."
The congresswoman added that "it is clear that legislative reforms are needed to prevent any future illegal or unconstitutional efforts to interfere with the census and chip away at our democracy."
"My bill, the Ensuring a Fair and Accurate Census Act, is commonsense legislation that will help prevent a similar crisis from occurring again and will protect one of our nation's most vital democratic institutions from partisan exploitation," she continued, calling on the Democrat-controlled House to swiftly pass the legislation "to safeguard the integrity and independence of the U.S. Census Bureau."
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As Feared, 2020 Census Significantly Undercounted Minorities
"This undercount means we are saddled with inaccurate numbers for the next decade," said one rights advocate. "The consequences are serious."
Mar 10, 2022
Latino Americans were significantly undercounted in the 2020 U.S. Census, according to an analysis released Thursday by the Census Bureau--a result which advocacy groups said was what former President Donald Trump's administration intended to happen when it attempted to change the decennial survey.
"This was intentional."
The census miscounted the U.S. population by 18.8 million people--an overall count that was relatively consistent with past surveys but that saw communities of color undercounted at higher rates than in past years.
Following Trump's efforts to add a citizenship question and to stop undocumented immigrants from being counted for the apportionment of U.S. House seats, the undercount of Latino people tripled from 1.54% in 2010 to 4.99% in 2020.
"This was intentional," said Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-Texas), warning that "the undercount will strip Latino communities of government funding and electoral power."
\u201cThis was intentional. After Trump tried to use the Census to enforce his racism and xenophobia, Latinos were undercounted at 3X the 2010 rate.\n\nThe undercount will strip Latino communities of government funding and electoral power. Congress must not allow this to happen again.\u201d— Joaquin Castro (@Joaquin Castro) 1646933732
The undercount for people who identify as "some other race" was also statistically significant compared to the results in 2010, rising from 1.63% to 4.34%. Black Americans and Indigenous people were also undercounted, but at lower rates than the other groups.
Meanwhile, white Americans were overcounted at double the rate found in 2010.
"These numbers are devastating," Marc Morial, president of the National Urban League, told the Post. "The warnings we gave, the concerns that we raised, were absolutely true, and today we find ourselves with a census that is neither complete nor accurate."
The Census Bureau was challenged by numerous factors in 2020, as the coronavirus pandemic delayed the survey and wildfires in the West kept census-takers from reaching people who had not filled out the questionnaire online.
Critics said as the bureau was preparing to take the census that Trump's push to include a question about whether household members were U.S. citizens would intimidate Latino residents out of responding--warning that significant damage was done even after the former president's efforts failed.
Trump also moved up the deadline for finishing the count, leading to concerns of inaccuracies among census experts.
"Terrible demographic data has many consequences in our communities, especially in public health."
"I lay this at the feet of Donald Trump and [former Commerce Secretary] Wilbur Ross and their efforts to disrupt the census and make it as difficult as possible for Latinos to participate," Arturo Vargas, chief executive of the Latino advocacy group NALEO Educational Fund, told the Post.
"I said from the beginning when the first numbers were released that I smelled smoke," he added, referring to an analysis released in September by the American Statistical Association. "Today we learned that the 2020 Census was a five-alarm fire."
Census data is used to determine the allocation of $1.5 trillion in annual funding for communities based on how many residents are reported, including funds for Medicaid, public housing, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, and highway planning. The numbers are also used to apportion U.S. House seats and draw congressional district maps.
"Terrible demographic data has many consequences in our communities, especially in public health," said epidemiologist Jessica Malaty Rivera.
\u201cA sadly unsurprising outcome: "2020 Census Undercounted U.S. Population by Nearly 19 Million"...of Color. \nTerrible demographic data has many consequences in our communities, especially in public health. https://t.co/kQOl62G6FH\u201d— Jessica Malaty Rivera, MS (@Jessica Malaty Rivera, MS) 1646937681
Damon Hewitt, president and executive director of the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, said the undercounting of communities of color "robs us of the opportunity to be the directors of our fate, reducing our representation and limiting our power while depriving policymakers of the information they need to make informed decisions about where the next hospital will be built or where the next school should be located."
"This undercount means we are saddled with inaccurate numbers for the next decade," he added. "The consequences are serious."
Correction: An earlier version of this article stated that 18.8 million people had been undercounted by the 2020 U.S. Census. The article has been changed to reflect that 18.8 million people were miscounted rather than undercounted.
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'Outrageous' and 'Disturbing': Openly Defying Federal Court Order, Wilbur Ross Moves to Shut Down Census Early
"Complying with a federal court's order is not optional. The Trump administration is flouting the rule of law to undercount and erase our communities."
Sep 29, 2020
Just days after a federal judge ordered the Trump administration to reinstate the previous October 31 deadline for the 2020 census, the U.S. Census Bureau late Monday released a one-sentence statement announcing that Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross plans to shut down the once-in-a-decade count on October 5 in open defiance of court instructions.
"The Secretary of Commerce has announced a target date of October 5, 2020 to conclude 2020 census self-response and field data collection operations," the Census Bureau said in a Twitter post just minutes before a court hearing on the administration's compliance with last week's court order.
"This is disturbing and another example of the Trump administration politicizing the census. Rushing the census risks an inaccurate census and a constitutional crisis."
--Sen. Jeanne Shaheen
In response to the bureau's statement, Judge Lucy Koh of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California ordered the Commerce Department to turn over records related to the decision to shut down the census on October 5 by Tuesday at 1 pm ET.
Civil rights groups that have been fighting the Trump administration's push to prematurely shut down the 2020 census raised alarm at Ross' brazen effort to bypass Koh's order extending the deadline, which activists applauded last week as an essential step toward ensuring an accurate count for the proper allocation of congressional seats and federal funding.
"Complying with a federal court's order is not optional," tweeted immigrant rights group Make the Road New York. "The Trump administration is flouting the rule of law to undercount and erase our communities."
Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) said late Monday that Ross' defiance of a federal court order--which the Trump administration is currently appealing--is "disturbing and another example of the Trump administration politicizing the census."
"Rushing the census risks an inaccurate census and a constitutional crisis," Shaheen warned.
\u201cThe Trump administration is defying a court order that allows the public to submit census responses through October. This is disturbing and another example of the Trump admin politicizing the census. Rushing the census risks an inaccurate census and a constitutional crisis.\u201d— Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (@Sen. Jeanne Shaheen) 1601337319
Last month, the Census Bureau abruptly announced that it would be ending door-knocking and other counting efforts for the 2020 census on September 30--a decision rights groups immediately and successfully challenged in court, denouncing it as an effort to rush and "sabotage" the census count. Earlier this month, as Common Dreams reported, advocacy organizations also secured a court ruling blocking the Trump administration's attempt to exclude undocumented immigrants from the census.
In a statement late Monday responding to the Trump administration's latest effort to cut short the counting process, House Oversight Committee Chairwoman Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.) said the Census Bureau's push for an October 5 deadline "appears to directly contradict the clear orders of a federal court, which requires the Census Bureau to continue counting households until October 31."
"This should not be a partisan issue," said Maloney. "The Trump administration's unlawful undercount will negatively affect the hundreds of millions of dollars that both red and blue states are due in federal funding. It is time that the Trump administration stopped working to politicize and jeopardize the 2020 census."
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