CALL TO ACTION #691: Congress Must Protect our Constitutional Right to a Fair Census (June 3, 2019)

The GOP has been waging war on the Census and redistricting process for years. From mid-decade redistricting to extreme political gerrymanders, Republicans have succeeded in disenfranchising voters.

Now the GOP seeks to add a new question never asked before — about the citizenship status of each person in each household — to the census.  It would cause as many as 6.5 million people to go uncounted, dramatically affecting re-districting and the allocation of federal revenues to states and localities.

Trump Administration officials testified under oath that the question is intended to improve compliance with the Voting Rights Act (!). A majority of the Supreme Court seemed to accept their statements.

But the newly-discovered documents of a deceased Republican re-districting specialist, Thomas Hofeller, show that the VRA argument was a pretext and that the question would benefit white Republicans. Hofeller confessed that it would result in a “radical departure from the federal ‘one person, one vote’ rule.” These documents exposed the false testimony and prove that the real reason for the question is to enable more extreme Republican gerrymandering.

Now more than ever, the House Oversight Committee must continue to investigate the GOP’s efforts to undermine our democracy.