Trego's Mountain Ear

This is a topic where I write with some experience – Robert Santos has resigned and will not be heading the Census Bureau.  Interestingly enough, Santos has been described as working to include overlooked communities – but from my perspective, as a rural demographer, one of the great losses that occurred during the past two censuses has been losing the data that was once available at the school district level.  Time was when we had population data for all of our school districts – while Chicago didn’t need it, it was very useful for small rural districts.  A local example would be as obvious as Eureka’s attempts to fund a new school building.  In Trego, getting that back would provide full data on the district – where now I have to rely on estimates based on zip codes.

OK – that covers my rant about losing access to data.  Trump will be appointing a new director – and I think I know what the next director’s mission will be.  The deal is the Enumeration clause of the Constitution:

Article I, Section 2, Clause 3:

Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons

The Enumeration clause says we count persons, not citizens – and that has grown into a situation that wasn’t a concern in 1789.  We don’t know the percentage of American residents that are non-citizens – the Census no longer asks for that data.  On the other hand, we still have data on the number of residents who are ‘foreign born’ – so I can use that as a substitute.  It’s not perfect, but it gets the point across – and California shows the problem.

I have the academic arrogance that leads me away from citing wikipedia – but in this case, wikipedia provides adequate data List of U.S. states and territories by immigrant population – Wikipedia

Montana’s population has relatively few foreign born – just 2.2%.  On the other hand, Rhode Island, the state we just beat out to get a second seat in Congress has 13.2% foreign born.  It doesn’t take a lot of calculation to see how the calculation of congressional seats can inflate the representation for states with more non-citizen population.

So lets look at California:  California has 52 representatives in Congress.  26.9 percent of Californians are foreign born.   Some of those are undoubtedly naturalized citizens – but many are not.  We don’t have the data I would like – but if we use foreign born as a substitute for non-citizen, and contrast California with Montana, US citizens in California have 24.7 percent more representation in Congress than Montanans.  This discrepancy affects the concept of one man, one vote.  Apportioning Congressional representation by citizens as opposed to persons might move California’s Congressional delegation from 52 to 39.

22.8 percent of New York and New Jersey residents are foreign born.  Florida kicks in at 21 percent.  Hawaii’s at 18.7%.  Texas comes in at 17.2%.

So I figure the next Census director will be adding a citizenship question to the 2030 Census – so people won’t have to substitute ‘foreign born’ for non-citizen to do rough calculations.  When we look at the electoral college, California, New York, New Jersey, etc. have definitely had more influence in determining our nation’s leadership than states with smaller non-citizen populations.

Like birth tourism, this wasn’t a problem that came to mind in 1789.  I know that the constitution reads persons rather than citizens – but I suspect there are a couple of lawyers working for the Trump administration that will come up with an argument that says to count by citizens.