With preparations for the 2030 census already underway, Trump said Thursday he has instructed his administration to start work on a “new” census.
According to a social media post by Trump, that census would exclude millions of people living in the country without legal status — an unprecedented change to how the country has conducted population tallies since the first U.S. census in 1790.
The 14th Amendment requires the “whole number of persons in each state” to be included in a key set of census numbers used to determine how presidents and members of Congress are elected.
Population count for representation is explicitly not based in citizenship per the US constitution, but free people in the district. This is yet another illegal power grab.
The SCOTUS will undoubtedly come and say some bullshit like “The founders obviously meant “free people” to only include US citizens, because they didn’t explicitly say foreigners were included”…
Right, “originalism” really means “I can interpret this however it benefits the reactionary right.”
It means “We fetishize a bunch of old, dead white men. Since we can’t ask them their opinions on things anymore, we will project our views onto them in a desperate attempt to gain legitimacy.”
SCOTUS refused to take up a similar case in 2020, saying that it was “premature.”
So I guess that means it’ll be A OK this time.