Trump is creating ‘perfect storm for a terrible census.’ Here’s what you can do about it
Believe it or not, the time to worry about the 2030 census is right now.
You may have long-since been huddled in a defensive crouch against the psychic assault of the midterm elections, but allow us to tap you on the shoulder and bring you one more civics nightmare you should be worried about right now: the 2030 Census.
Yes, we’ve got another political deadline coming up, and it falls before Election Day, no less. On Nov. 2, the window closes for the public to submit comments on the Trump administration’s proposed changes to the 2030 census, and a bunch of elected officials are calling for an “all hands on deck” effort to keep New Yorkers from losing much-needed federal funding and political representation.
The Trump-proposed overhaul in question would remove non-citizens and non-permanent residents from the census count altogether, and would eliminate demographic questions including those about race, ethnicity and sexual orientation (the survey “should be colorblind” is the purported rationale here), all of which could have enormous negative ramifications both locally and nationally.
“We’re looking at the perfect storm for a terrible census,” Jeff Wice, a professor at New York Law School and a co-chair of the recently established New York City Census Taskforce, told The Groove. Trump’s proposed changes are “drastic and out of the ordinary,” Wice noted, adding, “A race question has been asked every year since 1790.”
The city and state are already taking action.
“The federal administration’s proposed overhaul of the 2030 census would have disastrous impacts on our communities,” Attorney General Letitia James said in a statement earlier this month, alongside City Council Speaker Julie Menin.
The two were together to announce the new Census Taskforce, created not just in response to Trump’s proposed changes, but to provide recommendations to the mayor’s office for maximally effective future census planning and outreach.
“We will not let their efforts to sow fear and unease stop us from ensuring every single New Yorker is counted in the 2030 Census," James said.
“If we don’t have an accurate, comprehensive headcount, all sorts of things will go wrong.”
If the changes go through, scores of New Yorkers will be excluded from the count, meaning we could lose more congressional representation than we already have, and along with huge amounts of federal funding to communities that often need it the most.
“If we don’t have a real sense of who’s living in different communities, especially communities of color, we’re not going to be able to provide services to those populations, nor fair representation," Wice said.
A potentially senseless census
You’d be forgiven if a few other things have been on your mind since the 2020 census, so let’s take a quick trip down memory lane.
Back in 2020, the Trump administration sought to add a citizenship question to the census and eliminate undocumented immigrants from the count. James filed a lawsuit, and the move was eventually struck down by the Supreme Court.
“What they want to do now is much worse,” said Steven Romalewski at the Center for Urban Research of the CUNY Graduate Center, who directs CUNY’s Mapping Service including its Census 2030 planning map. “It’s not simply adding a question, it would be changing census regulations, it would affect all censuses [indefinitely].”
Tim Donnelly
Since its inception, the purpose of the census has been to count the total number of people living in an area, regardless of citizenship or other status.
"The 14th amendment requires the census to include the whole number of persons for purposes of congressional reapportionment," Wice said. "The Trump administration is seeking to redefine ‘whole person’ as people who are citizens or here on a permanent basis. That’s contrary to the meaning of the constitution and the debate that led to the enactment of the 14th amendment after the Civil War."
The citizenship question may have been struck down for the 2020 census, but New York still faced the very-real ramifications of insufficient (or inefficiently collected) census data. An undercount of just 89 people that year led the state to lose a congressional seat, a screw-up some parties have blamed on a lackadaisical census effort from then-governor Andrew Cuomo. Long-term demographic shifts have led New York to lose a number of congressional seats over the decades, but Trump’s proposals set the state up to lose more than we otherwise might in 2030, Wice said.
“New York would be facing a much greater loss of population count and congressional representation if the Trump proposals become reality,” he said.
The chaos would extend far beyond New York. An analysis by the New York Times found that Trump’s proposed census rules could wind up costing Texas a congressional seat while handing an extra one to Minnesota, presumably the opposite of the intended political effect.
“I don’t think the administration has fully thought through all the ramifications of this,” Romalewski said.
As for New York, a census undercount is also potentially disastrous when it comes to distribution of federal funding.
“There are hundreds of billions of dollars a year in federal funds that are distributed to states based on decennial census data,” Romalewski said. “Medicare, Medicaid, education programs, transportation programs, so much federal funding is based on how many people, and how many different types, are in your state or county. So if your community or state is undercounted then you’re not going to get your fair share of federal dollars.”
Beyond that, census data is “the bedrock statistical system of the United States,” Romalewski said. “If we don’t have an accurate, comprehensive headcount, all sorts of things will go wrong.”
Your civic duty to complain
While officials including James are preparing to fight these proposals on the legal level, they’re also asking citizens to weigh in. (You can do that online here until the Nov. 2 deadline, and you can find more instructions and potential language to use here.)
“We encourage every New Yorker to take action now by submitting a public comment to ensure the health of our democracy,” Murad Awawdeh, president and CEO of New York Immigration Coalition, said in a statement earlier this month.
If your instinct is exhaustion at the concept of sending the Trump administration another strongly worded letter, the feeling isn’t unfounded. While more than 55,000 comments have been submitted, Wice said, with 85% of comments weighing in against the proposed census changes,
“The Commerce Department isn’t likely to give the comments that much weight, since the proposals themselves seem very poorly constructed and with a political goal in mind,” he said.
Still, it’s all a crucial part of the historical (and eventual legal) record, Romalewski said.
“The comments are very important,” he said. “The administration could very well prepare this report and say ‘we disagree with the comments, we’re going ahead anyway,’ but if there’s any kind of litigation, that will be helpful information for litigators to review and understand what the arguments are.”
“And for whoever will be hearing whatever litigation comes, including the Supreme Court, it all becomes part of the record,” he added.
Aside from this specific comment period, there’s plenty of reason to be preparing for the next census a full four years out. It will bring the added spectre of ICE and other kinds of federal interference, Wice said
“The 2030 census could be the most challenging and difficult in American history,” he said. "This has to be an all-hands-on-deck effort to get the best count we can, using every resource imaginable.”
Dave Colon
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