[National Review] Here’s why the Left is so upset about that new census question.The Commerce Department has announced that a question will be added to the 2020 Census asking about respondents’ citizenship status. Democrats have responded with fury, and twelve states, led by California, will be suing to stop the change. While their argument is that the question will discourage illegal immigrants from participating in the survey, there is another, related reason why the urban elites who now dominate the Democratic party are afraid of this simple question.
With this question, the 2020 Census will better quantify the extent to which immigration, including illegal immigration, gives Democrats disproportionate political power ‐ despite the fact that immigrants themselves are not allowed to vote. This happens because seats in the House, and consequently Electoral College votes as well, are given out based on the total number of people residing in a state.
California illustrates the problem. While the Census Bureau stopped asking about citizenship on the main Census form in 1960, it has continued to ask about it in other surveys. One of these, the American Community Survey, shows that the non-citizen proportion of the population in the states varies widely, ranging from 14 percent in California to less than 1 percent in West Virginia. Based on these estimates, California, the first sanctuary state, has five or six more members of the House than it would if House seats were based on citizen population alone.