Few of us remember a time before the first census, mostly because it occurred at the tail-end of the eighteenth century. To be specific, the first census began over a year after the inauguration of President George Washington after Congress assigned all marshals of the U.S. judicial districts, at the time, to visit every household in America, gather information, and that “the aggregate amount of each description of persons” for every district be transmitted to the president. When the census was first taken, slavery was still very much a part of the societal culture in the states. We know this because one of the six required inquiries in the 1790 census called for each family to disclose how many slaves resided in their domicile.
As we’ve come to recognize in modern times, big data is as powerful as it is dangerous when wielded by the wrong individuals, and there is a point where gathering information from an individual/family can become invasive when certain questions are posed. For example, slavery was a disgusting practice from our collective history that many still feel the pain from, but the government was simply trying to ascertain information about the populous. One would assume that, given we are hundreds of years away from a time where people of color were considered to be 3/5 human to that of white people, the rhetoric of inappropriate census questions would change by now. Considering that we live at time where it seems as if anything is possible in domestic affairs, I’m hardly ever surprised when a headline emerges detailing the morally repugnant actions of a politician in this country.
As if perfectly timed with my opinions above, significant controversy has been increasing surrounding the ongoing trial over the US Commerce Department’s decision to reintroduce a question about citizenship in the 2020 census. Critics of the attempted decision have insisted that reinstatement of the question will warrant inaccurate census data, given the sheer amount of noncitizen living in the United States, ultimately furthering our country’s issue with fairly representing all peoples. Regardless of one’s opinion on the matter, a federal judge in New York blocked the Trump administration’s proposal to reintroduce the controversial census question. U.S. District Judge Jesse Furman, the man responsible for rejecting the proposed question, said that “hundreds of thousands — if not millions — of people will go uncounted in the census if the citizenship question is included. In arriving at his decision as he did, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross violated the law and the public trust.”
“…By its terms, therefore, the Constitution mandates that every ten years the federal government endeavor to count every single person residing in the United States, whether citizen or noncitizen, whether live here with legal status or without. The population count derived from that effort is used not only to apportion Representatives among the states, but also to draw political districts and allocate power within them. And it is used to allocate hundreds of billions of dollars in federal, state, and local funds…Even small deviations from an accurate count can have major implications for states, localities, and the people who live in them — indeed, for the country as a whole.”
–Opinion by U.S. District Judge Jesse Furman
Though many people stand by Judge Furman’s decision, some individuals, namely those who firmly believe that the law, as it was written, is the only legislation we should follow, believe the ruling was in error. Hans Von Spakovsky, a senior legal fellow at the conservative Heritage Foundation, told the New York Times that Furman’s ruling ignores bot the law and the history of the census. Giving credit to where credit is due, federal law does give the Commerce secretary the necessary powers to determine what questions will/won’t be included on the census.
“It will also prevent us from getting accurate census data on citizens and noncitizen from across the country — since the American Community Survey (which includes the citizenship question) is limited in scope — which is vital in enforcement of the Voting Rights Act, distribution of federal funds and having an informed debate about immigration policy.”
–Hans Von Spakovsky
