Census 2020: Debate Over Adding Citizenship Question

Just weeks before the Supreme Court is expected to rule on whether the Trump administration can add a citizenship question to the 2020 Census, new evidence emerged Thursday suggesting the question was crafted specifically to give an electoral advantage to Republicans and whites.

The evidence was found in the files of the prominent Republican redistricting strategist Thomas Hofeller after his death in August. It reveals that Hofeller “played a significant role in orchestrating the addition of the citizenship question to the 2020 Decennial Census in order to create a structural...

The Trump administration wants the 2020 census, which will be distributed to all people living in the United States next spring, to ask, “Are you a citizen of the United States?” A group of blue states led by California and New York emphatically do not want a census citizenship question, because they’re worried it will make their residents less likely to return their census forms — and thus hurt their apportionment in Congress after the 2020 census results are tallied.

On Tuesday at 10 am Eastern time, the Supreme Court...