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Alternative Radio

How impor­tant is the 2020 cen­sus? Very. Its reper­cus­sions are pro­found. It’s about pow­er and mon­ey. The cen­sus in the­o­ry should be neu­tral, an objec­tive col­lec­tion of data, but like almost every­thing else these days it is polit­i­cal­ly charged. The num­bers deter­mine rep­re­sen­ta­tion in Con­gress and allo­ca­tion of fed­er­al funds. The Cen­sus Bureau is part of the Depart­ment of Com­merce. Every ten years it is man­dat­ed by the Con­sti­tu­tion to count (“enu­mer­ate” is the exact word) the country’s pop­u­la­tion. In the 2020 cen­sus the Trump admin­is­tra­tion has added a ques­tion about cit­i­zen­ship. A con­cern is that the addi­tion of such a ques­tion will dis­cour­age immi­grants from fill­ing out the form. The Con­sti­tu­tion says noth­ing about a dis­tinc­tion between cit­i­zens and non-cit­i­zens. A court case in New York will soon rule on this crit­i­cal issue.