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In one year, local workers and a "complete count committee" will be among those making a coordinated effort nationwide to ensure every single resident is counted in the 2020 national census.
Required by the U.S. Constitution, a count every 10 years of "the whole number of persons in each state," is used to determine things like the number of seats each state has in the House and how the electoral votes that decide presidential elections are distributed. To be sure, it goes to the heart of the U.S. political system.
After nearly 230 years, the reasoning behind the census is accepted as sound and without controversy, right?
Wrong.
Continuing the current trend in Washington, this routine count conducted every 10 years since 1790 is triggering just the latest dustup between our federal Democratic lawmakers and Republican President Donald Trump.
Trump and his Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross want to include a question asking whether each respondent is a U.S. citizen. If permitted, it would be the first time since 1950 that the full census asks about citizenship.
Democrats are opposed to the question.
In fact, they are so against including the question that a Democratic-controlled House panel voted 23-14 last week to subpoena documents and a witness related to the Trump administration's decision to add a citizenship question to the 2020 census. They say they want to know exactly what's behind Trump's desire to add the question.
Now, I may not be as smart about politics as all those experts holding office in Washington, but I'd say Trump's reasoning is pretty obvious.
Immigration has been Trump's primary campaign promise and priority since well before he took office. Shouldn't we know what kind of numbers we're talking about? Even immigration experts can't accurately pin down that number, estimated at between 12 million and 20 million.
The Census Bureau also believes adding a citizenship question would cause lower response rates among non-citizens, costing $27.5 million for additional phone calls, home visits and other follow-up efforts.
But I'd argue many questions might make respondents uneasy or may be answered inaccurately. Surely, most of us hold our household income information very closely. Or some may lie about the number of dependents living in their homes. In fact, many people just avoid completing the census because they don't trust the government in general.
So, who's to say the addition of a simple question about whether or not you are a U.S. citizen will be the last straw that drives residents to take cover when they see census takers on their front porch?
And isn't that why the government spends millions of dollars to hire paid workers to chase down respondents?
In my business, reporters often face sources that don't want to talk or questions that are uncomfortable to ask. But we put on our big boy pants and do it anyway because it's the right thing to do.
Doesn't every job have its challenges? Does that mean you just give up without even trying?
Trump also got pushback for his social media post Monday when he said, "Can you believe that the Radical Left Democrats want to do our new and very important Census Report without the all important Citizenship Question. Report would be meaningless and a waste of the $Billions (ridiculous) that it costs to put together!"
Now, I don't agree that it will be totally "meaningless," and, frankly, I don't believe the president really thinks so either, in a literal sense. I think he just means it will be meaningless to his goal of getting accurate counts on immigration and citizenship.
And so, the latest battle is set.
Two federal judges have already ruled against the question, and the Supreme Court is expected to rule on the issue before survey forms are printed.
While the two sides dig in, money will be spent -- lots of money -- on this latest ridiculous partisan fight.
blinert@tribtoday.com