By Camille Erickson | Arizona Mirror
Census data shapes almost every corner of public life, like the amount of federal money funneled to school lunch programs, new bus routes and rural health clinics. And for Arizona, the 2020 Census will determine whether the state gets a 10th congressional seat.
As the country barrels toward the 2020 Census, the Supreme Court must decide if the upcoming decennial count can include a question left unasked for more than seven decades: “Is this person a citizen of the United States?”
The question, the constitutionality of which was debated before the Supreme Court on Tuesday, could have sizeable consequences for Arizona’s federal funding and political representation, census experts said.
The U.S. Constitution stipulates that the government must count every person in the country each decade, regardless of citizenship status. A question about respondent’s citizenship has been asked in the past, but in recent decades has been asked of only a small sample.
Beth Lynk, director of the Census Counts Campaign for the Leadership Conference on Human and Civil Rights, is concerned that adding a citizenship question, simple as it may sound, will undermine a fair and accurate census count. Noncitizens would be discouraged from participating based on a fear that they would be identified and possibly deported, she said.
“When communities don’t receive their fair share of political representation, that undermines their ability to live a safe, healthy and equitable life,” Lynk said. “The census has to be fair and it has to be accurate. Otherwise, it subverts what our very democracy stands for.”
