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.
Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons.
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”…
I’ve heard tell some pig farms use the code NHI- No Humans Involved in cases involving homeless, illegal, or minority victims.
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.
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.”
So … illegals count as three fifths? Because it clearly says “other”, meaning whatever you define as “free people”, whoever is not is also getting counted.
It’s not unprecedented, he tried this last time, and the courts stopped him. Now there are more Trumpy judges, though, so we’ll see what tortured logic the Supreme Court uses to back him his time.
Going to be hilarious when they do this and it ends up hurting Florida and Texas the most. They’ll end up losing a ton of congressional seats, mostly out of Republican controlled areas. They’ll have to scramble to redistrict again to keep their gerrymandering going.
Release the Epstein files
It’s illegal. This is literally in the constitution.
Who the fuck is going to talk to a census worker these days?
California, Texas, and Florida will feel this the most.
