The Republican-led House has passed a measure that would require the U.S. Census Bureau to add a citizenship question to the census, which is taken every 10 years.
The Equal Representation Act passed the chamber with a party-line vote of 206–202. According to The Hill, the U.S. Supreme Court blocked the citizenship question in a 2019 ruling.
“The measure would direct the Census Bureau to add a question to the 10-year survey asking for the respondent’s citizenship status and require that the U.S. only consider citizens when determining the number of congressional seats each state receives,” the outlet reported.
The measure, if passed, would allow Republicans to reduce the influence of liberal-leaning states such as California by targeting apportionment.
Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) said in a statement after the vote, “We should not reward states and cities that violate federal immigration laws and maintain sanctuary policies with increased Congressional representation. Common sense dictates that only American citizens should be counted for electoral apportionment, and the Equal Representation Act ensures that.”
Some constitutional experts warn that the measure would not withstand legal scrutiny. They point to the appropriate section of the Constitution which requires the counting of “the whole number of free persons” during the census-taking, saying nothing about only counting citizens.
Not surprisingly, Democrats railed against the legislation as an attack on immigrant communities.
“A citizen’s only census, as this legislation intends, is reckless, cynical, and frankly, illegal,” Rep. Grace Meng (D-N.Y.) said during a House floor speech on Wednesday. “It is not the Census Bureau’s job to keep track of immigration status.”
The Hill noted that, in a statement of policy issued this week, the Biden administration said it “strongly opposes” the measure “which would preclude the Department of Commerce’s Census Bureau from performing its constitutionally mandated responsibility to count the number of persons in the United States in the decennial census.”
