The decennial census is one of the oldest and most accepted duties of our government. Starting in 1790, the entire population of the country has been engaged in a census or actual counting of the real population every ten years. And, as is noted in the constitution, it then presents the numbers for representational apportionment – or actual members of the House of Representatives who shall represent any given district. Federal funding for each region and local governments are also tabulated from the final census numbers. Currently about 900 Billion dollars is budgeted annually for these allocations. The Administration has wanted the count to end early so that it could be reported to the president by December 31st some say, when he would be certain to still be able to manipulate the numbers.
(Article I, Section 2, Clause 3: Enumeration clause US Constitution
The actual Enumeration
shall be made within three Years after the first Meeting of the Congress of the
United States, and within every subsequent Term of ten Years, in such Manner as
they shall by Law direct.)
For 230 years the count has been conducted
without interruption. This year there was more controversary as the
administration early on tried to add a citizenship question to the census. Secretary
of Commerce Wilbur
Ross was confronted by Democrats on the House Oversight Committee in 2019 concerning
lying to Congress about the need for a Citizenship question. He had indicated
that the question was added as requested by the Department of Justice in order
to correctly enforce the 1965 Voting Rights Act. It actually turned out that
was not the case and the impetus for the question had come from the Commerce
Department as requested by others in government, (possibly White House staff) –
documents which might have clarified this were withheld from the Committee. The
Census Bureau, in protest, had indicated that the addition of such a question
would result in a significant undercount of about 9 million people or around 8
%.
After litigation which went to the Supreme
Court with a 5-4 decision written by Chief Justice Roberts, it was decided
that the actions by the Commerce Secretary violated the Constitution. The facts
as produced, also did not fit the case presented by the Administration, leading
some to think it could have been appealed again with better arguments. However, there were time constraints involving
the time line for printing of the forms, so the alternative arguments were
never submitted. (It is quite possible, that a better argument might have
resulted in a different outcome -scary thought!) The Brennan
Center for Justice discussed the case and indicated that careful oversight
must be continued as other threats against this count remain, including loss of
privacy, issues with cybersecurity and eventual misuses of the protected data. The
very suggestion
about the citizenship question led many, even legal immigrants, to indicate
that they felt that it was not safe to fill out the form. The fact that most
residents were encouraged to complete the census online also brought the
digital divide into question as many who are undocumented or who are poor or
elderly are not computer savvy. Personally, I did not fill out the form immediately
after I received it; subsequently I received several reminders, I assume that
this was the usual follow-up as experienced by most people.
The latest actions had the Commerce Department
trying to end the Census early – these moves were stayed by a lower court but
the Administration appealed to the Supreme Court for an emergency override
which was upheld.
Technically, there are still other cases about the census to be decided, but
this is like turning a battleship around, these cannot be resolved easily or quickly,
so most likely each will be done in by the calendar. These moves against a
constitutionally mandated process seems to have created a rift in the
relationship between a government and its people and may be one which will take
a generation to repair.
Most recently, the president has asked the Court
to decide on his plan to remove undocumented persons from the census count – he
wanted the Census to carry a dual track of numbers and use an estimate
to determine the numbers of unauthorized immigrants and remove them. This was
denied by a Federal District Court in September.
According to the New York Times – “Excluding noncitizens from reapportionment
totals has long been a cause among many Republicans, who traditionally have
been seen as the political winners under such a change.” Many non-citizens have a legal right to be in this
country and contribute to society as do thousands of undocumented residents. The
Administration also appealed this decision to the Supreme Court which has said
it will hear the case on November 30th. Some have said that the
Court often defers to bureaucracies on issues of process, so it is uncertain
how this decision may come down. Assuming that Judge Amy Comey Barrett will be
seated by then (unfortunately) she may also get to weigh in on this issue. (I
have not chosen to discuss the hearings on her nomination as little was
revealed during the several days of the hearings and she was steadfast in
refusing to answer most questions.)
My thoughts on these actions by the Commerce
Department (which is in charge of the Census Bureau) are that this was another
attempt at assaulting urban America; you know – those cities which are often
Democrat enclaves with progressives in charge and give homes to many immigrants
and undocumented residents. Some of these cities are sanctuary cities and will
not support Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) on their raids. Other
urban centers subsequently were deemed unlawful and Federal paramilitary
forces were put in place with deleterious results, such as in Portland. Several
cities have been under verbal attacks by this administration for urban violence
since the Black Lives Matter demonstrations happened earlier this year and the
president threatened to put federal forces in place to maintain order, despite
mostly peaceful protests.
The calls for “Law and Order” and complaints
about lawless cities are essentially stock campaign fodder for the
president. He continues to pretend he is
unaware of lawless
groups such as Proud Boys, Boogaloo and the right-wing militias who hatched
a plot to kidnap the Governor of Michigan; he said in Michigan on Saturday that
she should be locked up for not opening up her state and led his crowd in
chanting “lock her up”! Where is the law and order here? At least the FBI and
State Police are doing their jobs and not listening to such nonsense.
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COVID news: The news has not been good this week
as counts have been between 50 -60,000 each day this week with virtually the
entire nation showing increases. (Map is shown in stats link below.) According to an article in the Washington Post,
the annual
Sturgis motorcycle meeting in South Dakota has been found to be a
super-spreader event, much as health authorities warned that it might be. Almost
half a million persons attended the rally and then returned home to several
midwestern states and elsewhere. For example, South Dakota alone had 84 cases
reported just before the mid-August rally and 434 cases reported the first week
in October. (Obviously not all of these are due to Sturgis; however, SD does
not have a mandatory mask order in effect.)
Latest COVID -19 Stats
from the New York Times as of Sunday 10/18/20:
Total US Cases: 8,188,700. New cases: 52,774. Total deaths: 219,500. Total new deaths: 679.
These numbers are a 28% increase from 2 weeks
ago.
Maryland - Total cases: 135,127. Total new cases 798. Total deaths: 4,036. Total new deaths 4.
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According to news reports on NPR more than 26
million Americans have already voted in early voting for the November 3rd
election. That is approximately 20% of
the total number who voted in 2016, the last Presidential year. (138 million
people voted in 2016, about 58.1% of the number of eligible voters.) As
expected, more Democrats and elderly voters, as well as African American voters,
are among these early totals, so this is not an accurate picture of the final
results. Republicans, following the lead
of the president, generally plan to vote on election day. There have been some
glitches across the country and long lines in many states when early voting
started. Polling places have changed and practices or machines may be different
– all of which can restrict or delay voting, but to my knowledge there have
been no wide-spread instances of problems. Some are still concerned that the
militias encouraged by the president might still show up for intimidation on
election day or for ballot counts.
In conclusion - As a sad aside, the Post reported
that an elderly
man nearing death so wanted to vote for Biden, that his family made sure he
could get an absentee ballot as soon as they were available. And, on the first
day ballots were accepted in Michigan, he personally placed his ballot in a
county drop box. He died a few days later; however, his family later learned his
ballot will not count as Michigan ballots are counted on election day and not
before and one must be alive on that day to have a vote counted. Somehow this
just seems so wrong.
If you have not yet voted – please make a plan to
vote and vote early if you can. 15 days to go!
‘Til next week – Peace.
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