Tuesday Census Open Comments

The Census – Where Citizens and Illegal Aliens Collide

Republicans have put forth a bill to ask on the next census the citizenship status of the respondents, and call that only citizens be counted towards the apportionment of representatives in the House. Currently every warm body is used to apportion representatives (and electors).  Changing this raises some interesting issues:

The Electoral College distribution is determined by the number of congressional seats – so the number of US representatives a state has plus two senators equals its number of presidential electors. Since there are 435 seats in the US House and 100 in the Senate, that means there are 535 electors spread out across the 50 states, plus three in Washington, DC, for a total of 538. The states that either gained or lost representatives after the last census also gained or lost an equal number of electors.

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…the states with the highest concentration of undocumented residents stand to lose the most. According to the Pew Research Center, the states with the most non-citizens – the biggest losers, in this situation – are California, Texas, Florida, New York, New Jersey, and Illinois.

It’s important to note that the two red states on that list – Texas and Florida – are the two biggest contributors to Republican electors. Yes, the Democratic Party stands to lose more than a few representatives and presidential electors, but so does the GOP. Still, Democrats unanimously oppose this effort. The House passed the bill 206 to 202, split precisely along party lines.

The White House warned that this bill … “It would also violate the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution, which requires that the number of seats in the House of Representatives ‘be apportioned among the several States according to their respective members, counting the whole number of persons in each State,’”…

Republicans make the point that if people aren’t legally allowed to vote (although that restriction has never stopped them from doing so), they shouldn’t expect representation; also, allowing illegal votes dilutes voters’ power among different areas.

 For example, Illinois and Pennsylvania both have 17 seats in the House and 19 presidential electors – but there are considerably more non-citizens in Illinois than in Pennsylvania, giving actual voters in Illinois a stronger voice in national politics.

And this point is being made as well:

Introducing the bill in the House, Rep. Chuck Edwards (R-NC) said, “Incentivizing illegal immigration and exploiting our democracy to skew the number of congressional seats or electoral votes for the presidency is immoral and a sure path to the downfall of our nation. Only American citizens can vote, and only American citizens should be counted when determining federal representation.”

Of course, the left would fight this tooth and nail, and the meat puppet would surely nix it on arrival.

But the question remains: Should anyone living in the U.S. expect representation that they are not legally allowed to vote for?  Should they have representation at all?  Should simply breathing American air qualify them to vote?  Is it humanitarian to disallow them a voice in the Chamber? And where does this lead if they do have the rights of representation, as if they were citizens?  Why even become a citizen then?  Does this devalue the privilege of citizenship and make new illegals more incentivized to ignore the rules?