The citizenship question that the Administration wants to add to the 2020 census would be unconstitutional because it would lead to an inaccurate population count — indeed, it is intended to do exactly that
This piece by @Judgenap emphasizes that there is one and only one purpose of the decennial census according to the Constitution: to get an accurate population count. 1/11
As such, his article serves an important purpose, but it also misses a fundamentally important point. 2/11
Napolitano points out that the constitutionally mandated purpose of the national census is to measure population size in order to fairly apportion representation in the House of Representatives. 3/11
Article I, Section 2: “Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States… according to their respective Numbers… .” 4/11
In fact, though, the first census in 1790 didn’t just count noses: it also broke the numbers down by sex, race, and age. (For example, it asked each household about the number of “free white males over and under the age of 16” etc.) 5/11 tinyurl.com/ntqs5zt
As a staunch civil libertarian, Napolitano deplores all the other questions that have been added to the census that have nothing to do with an accurate population count, including the Administration’s effort to add a citizenship question to it. 6/11
But the Administration’s fierce determination to add the citizenship question to the next census offends, not just alleged civil libertarian concerns, but the very purpose of the census itself. 7/11
Why is that? Because the motive behind the effort is to ensure that the population account *is* inaccurate, and that is desired because Republicans have concluded (no doubt correctly) 8/11
that it would lead to an undercount of racial and ethnic minorities — especially Latinos and Hispanics. 9/11
Even if one were to reject Napolitano’s civil libertarian arguments against adding any additional questions to the census, the objection that the citizenship would lead to an *inaccurate* population count 10/11
— indeed that it is *intended* to do so — makes the Administration’s effort to add the question to the census absolutely infirm constitutionally. 11/11
