By Rose Lapp
Associate Editor, Vol. 24
Congress is granted the power to carry out the census by Article 1, Section 2 of the Constitution, which reads: “The actual Enumeration shall be made within three Years after the first Meeting of the Congress of the United States, and within every subsequent Term of ten Years, in such Manner as they shall by Law direct.”[1] The responsibility of administering the census lies with the Secretary of Commerce. The census has not included a question about citizenship since 1950.[2] However, in March of 2018, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross announced that the 2020 Census would include the question “Is this person a citizen of the United States?”[3] This announcement was met with both great support and great outrage. President Trump’s 2020 reelection campaign sent an email endorsing the proposed change, stating that “The President wants the 2020 United States Census to ask people whether they are citizens. In another era, this would be COMMON SENSE.”[4] Civil rights groups, however, banded together almost instantaneously to bring lawsuits in New York, California and elsewhere, aimed at obtaining an injunction to prevent the question’s inclusion.[5]
