Census

The United States Census is conducted every ten years with the intent of collecting data that allow all of us, including politicians in Congress to better understand the makeup of our population, the needs of various constituencies that are part of that makeup, and very importantly, to understand where concentrations of those constituencies exist. But the census also collects lot and lots of detailed data on education, income, age, race, ... you name it.

For some strange reason, the Democrats have become hysterical over a simple question that probes a respondent's citizenship or lack thereof. The Dems have decided that asking a question about citizenship will suppress the response of illegal immigrants and as a consequence, lead to undercounts that "disenfranchise" those same illegal immigrants. This is analogous to the idiocy surrounding voter ID in which the Dems take the condescending and racist view that minorities are incapable of getting a valid government ID, and because of that, IDs suppress the minority vote.

A challenge to the census question is currently under review by the Supreme Court, and in an attempt to influence that court, the Dems have decided to create a "scandal" and hold members of the Trump administration in contempt of congress.

Kim Strassel comments:

Democrats have convinced themselves that if the administration is allowed to include the question, illegal aliens will shy away from the census, resulting in an undercount in urban areas and fewer Democratic House seats. The party is uninterested in the substantive policy reasons for the question. As New York’s Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez admitted in Wednesday’s hearing: “This determines who has power in the United States of America.”

When the Census Bureau announced last year that it would add the question, liberal attorneys general and advocacy groups rushed to sue and won some lower-court rulings. But in April the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Department of Commerce v. New York. The court’s conservatives seemed to take the view that the Commerce Department, which oversees the census, has broad authority over questions.

Liberals have been conducting a court lobbying/intimidation campaign ever since. Only a few weeks ago, they went to a lower court with “new” evidence—a 2015 study by a deceased GOP consultant—that they claim shows the citizenship question was a Republican plot to take over the House. Democrats suggested that the Supreme Court would lose its “legitimacy” if it rules in the administration’s favor.

Mr. Cummings is now flanking this effort. He insists this is about oversight, but one of his own committee members unhelpfully acknowledged in March that the committee demands were about trying to find a smoking gun to aid the litigation. Rep. Jimmy Gomez of California told NPR in March he hoped testimony from Mr. Ross “reveals something that the courts can use.” Unfortunately for Democrats, my congressional sources tell me none of the documents or interviews have revealed anything shady.

So now the goal is delay. Wednesday’s oversight hearing and contempt votes were designed to provoke the Trump administration into exerting executive privilege over a few confidential legal memos. This allowed Democrats to claim the administration is “hiding” important information—and to suggest the justices are missing vital information that could weigh in their decision.

It's worth stepping back from this for just a second and asking the following questions:

1. Is not the intent of the census to better understand the distribution of constituencies that makeup the U.S. population?

2. Why would anyone lobby to make data collected about that distribution less accurate?

3. Why would a party that tells us it cares so much about illegal immigrants want their numbers to be under-represented?

4. What, exactly, frightens the Democrats so much that they'd be willing to purposely advocate an undercount?

5. The Dems keep telling us they'll retake the presidency in 2020. Given that, wouldn't they want to know the number of illegal immigrants so they could craft caring programs to help them?

Like most things, this whole affair has nothing to do with concern for immigrants and everything to do with (quoting Rep Ocasio-Cortez) "... who has power in the United States of America.”