On September 10, in a continuation of what is now a nearly decade-long war on the national head count, the Trump administration proposed unprecedented changes to the 2030 U.S. census. Among the most important of these is a new rule that violates the Fourteenth Amendment’s command that the census count “the whole number of persons in each state” by effectively replacing the word “persons” with “citizens.”
The Trump administration defends this change with a mix of bad legal history and a convoluted argument about its need to “distinguish between foreign citizens in the United States who are counted for apportionment and those who are not counted for apportionment.” But its real goal is simpler: to build districts “advantageous to Republicans and non-Hispanic whites,” as the late Republican mapmaker Thomas Hofeller put it, which a citizens-only count would do.
Indeed, armed with census tabulations that exclude large numbers of U.S. residents, states with large immigrant populations could adopt legislative maps that significantly entrench Republicans’ power. And introducing a question about citizenship status, especially in the context of the Trump administration’s aggressive immigration enforcement policy, could deter participation in the census, even among naturalized citizens.
As other census experts have pointed out, Congress is currently abdicating its constitutional responsibility to protect the integrity of the census. If new congressional leadership is sworn in next year, that could change. But the critical task of defending the census does not belong to Congress alone. As I document in my book, Counting Like a State, states, cities, counties, tribes, and nongovernmental organizations played a central role in defending the 2020 census from the Trump administration’s assault. This time, they may have an even more important role to play.
It is already time to renew this fight. Most immediately, state and local officials must head to the courtroom—much as they did in 2020. As my book shows, coordination among state attorneys general, cities, and nonprofits played a significant role in beating back the Trump administration’s attempt to add a citizenship question to the 2020 census. These coalitions also used litigation to slow down the administration’s bid to exclude noncitizens from the tabulations used in reapportioning seats in Congress and the Electoral College.
The administration’s new rule invites similar legal challenges. It flies in the face of plain constitutional and statutory text, and rests on a frankly bizarre reading of the words “usual residence.”
The public comment period on the proposed rule, which is open until October 13, will give state and local officials their first opportunity to document the rule’s legal flaws. This period is also the time to show the potential consequences of the rule for state representation in Congress and the Electoral College, legislative maps at every level of government, and allocations of trillions in federal and state dollars.
Winning in court, however, is not the same thing as protecting the count. Even if, in the best-case scenario, state and local officials succeed in challenging the new rules—and even if a subsequent Congress or presidential administration reverses these rules—the Trump administration will have already accomplished its quiet work to eradicate trust in the census. Every signal that the census might be used to identify and detain U.S. residents teaches a lesson that it is safer not to respond to the census. That chilling effect will likely spread far beyond noncitizens, jeopardizing resources and representation for communities across the country, effects that could be locked in until 2040.
The second front for state and local officials, then, is investing in trusted, local outreach. Beyond mundane tasks like making and checking address lists, in 2020 state and local officials funded and coordinated outreach in hard-to-count communities. In doing so, they counteracted the fear spread by the Trump administration’s efforts to install a citizenship item on the 2020 questionnaire. Amid a climate of disinformation and the chaos of the Covid pandemic, these networks of officials and community partners were vital to boosting census participation and safeguarding its integrity.
Nevertheless, state and local investments in the 2020 census were uneven. Many states at risk for significant undercounts—including Texas and Florida—did not invest in census outreach. States and cities with severe resource disparities also struggled to invest in the census.
State and local officials need to take stock of the tremendous challenges that the Trump administration is creating for the 2030 count, even if its recent policy proposals are blocked. Hopeful signs are emerging in the states: Arkansas has already created its 2030 complete count committee. The Massachusetts Senate has convened a standing committee on census operations. New York and New Jersey are weighing bills to fund state census offices, and philanthropic funders are organizing to seed state coalitions before the Census Bureau’s own preparations, which lag their 2020 pace, catch up. But given the scale of the Trump administration’s attack on the 2030 count, the time to redouble these investments is now.
The lesson of the last decade is that Washington alone will not save the census. State and local officials should file comments and join lawsuits. But they must also fund outreach, stand up complete count committees, and start now. Litigation may stop this rule. Only states and cities, working with the organizations their residents trust, can make sure the count survives it.
