Comment on proposed changes to the U.S. Census and the impacts on local governments (U.S. Census Bureau)

The U.S. Census Bureau and Department of Commerce are proposing changes that would affect who gets counted in the census and what information is collected. The changes would exclude most noncitizens, change how “residence” is defined, and eliminate questions about race, ethnicity, and sexual orientation. Among other functions, the census helps determine how many congressional seats each state gets and how much federal funding communities receive to pay for schools, roads, and hospitals — all based on the total population in the local jurisdiction.

Led by San Francisco and Santa Clara County, a coalition including New York City, Los Angeles, and other local governments is pushing back. They are joined by the U.S. Conference of Mayors, which represents more than 1,500 cities with populations of 30,000 or more. 

The coalition’s comment urges the Census Bureau to withdraw the proposed rule. We argue the changes would weaken the census’s longstanding role of collecting objective, reliable, nonpartisan data that researchers and governments depend on, and would turn it into a political tool.

Why it matters

Many communities have large noncitizen populations. Santa Clara County has 20%, Los Angeles has 18%, and New York City has 15%. They pay taxes, strengthen local economies, attend school, have deep roots in local communities, and access the same services as other residents. The proposed rule ignores how excluding noncitizens would hurt communities. Removing questions about race, ethnicity, and sexual orientation would also jeopardize efforts to ensure equal access to services. Our comment details several areas the proposed changes would affect, including:

• Local services and planning: Local governments use census population data to make decisions about public health needs, safety, infrastructure, and emergency planning and response. Transit agencies use it to plan service by population size. All of this depends on a count that includes everyone in a community.
• Federal funding: More than 350 federal programs, including Head Start and the Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children, use census data to allocate nearly $3 trillion in funding. An accurate count helps local governments receive their fair share to respond to residents’ needs.
• Civil rights enforcement: Local communities use census information to enforce antidiscrimination laws and ensure fair access to opportunities in education, employment, voting, and homeownership. Eliminating questions about race, ethnicity, and sexual orientation would undermine the bureau’s own decades-long effort to improve the accuracy of the census count.

The census plays an integral role in how local governments plan and fund services to support their residents. Our comment shows that the proposed rule fails to weigh local governments’ reliance on accurate census data, lacks any logical explanation for altering the total population count for the first time in our country’s 250-year history, and violates both the Constitution and the Census Act.

Read the comment.

In addition, Public Rights Project joined a comment with organizations opposing the proposed rule. This effort is being led by The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, in partnership with NALEO Educational Fund and Asian Americans Advancing Justice.