The Citizenship Question

In his most recent Washington Post column George Will ruminates on the question of whether a citizenship question should be allowed on the decennial census:

Because the United States’ 18th-century founders were rational, empirical, inquisitive pursuers of evidence-based improvement, they placed in the Constitution’s second section after the preamble a requirement for a census. And the 14th Amendment stipulates the required actual enumeration, every 10 years, of “the whole number” of people residing in the country. From 1820 (when Congress wanted “foreigners not naturalized” to be counted) through 1950, the census almost always included a citizenship question, and in 2018 Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross decided that the 2020 “short-form” questionnaire, the one that goes to every household, should include one. Ross has testified that he was “responding solely” to a Justice Department request for the question to provide data helpful to enforcement of the Voting Rights Act (VRA) of 1965.

There are actually multiple questions to be considered, as Mr. Will notes.

• Does the Census Bureau have the legal authority to put a question about citizenship on the federal census?
• Does it matter that the Secretary of Commerce lied about the deliberations regarding it?
• Do the motives of the Trump Administration restrict it from doing something it otherwise has the legal authority to do?

My answers to those questions are yes, yes, and no. The Census Bureau has that authority because the Congress gave it the authority. The Congress should impeach Mr. Ross for lying to it. And imputedly bad motives do not restrict the Trump Administration from doing something it otherwise has the authority to do.

The Congress has been wrong in granting sweeping latitude and authority to executive branch agencies in matters for which they and not the executive branch have responsibility. The members of Congress need to do their own damned jobs.