South Austin Rep Decries Proposed Citizenship Census Question

SOUTH AUSTIN, TX — State Rep. Eddie Rodriguez who represents House District 51 encompassing southeast Austin in the Texas House of Representatives, has added his voice in opposition to the Trump administration's move to add a citizenship question to the 2020 Census.

On Monday, the U.S. Commerce Department announced it would satisfy a request by the U.S. Department of Justice to add the question to the census. The move has sparked wide opposition, with a dozen states so far by Wednesday indicating they would sue the Trump administration to prevent the measure. Critics of the added census question fear it might lead to a severe under-count in some areas, which in terms would compromise the levels of federal funding allotted for myriad programs.

Rodriguez, who also serves as Policy Chair of the Mexican American Legislative Caucus and on the House Committee on Redistricting, agrees with the under-counting predictions, and labeled the effort by the Trump administration as tantamount to gerrymandering to dilute the minority vote.

“The effort to add a citizenship question to the 2020 Census is a scare tactic designed to frighten people out of participation and the first step in the national Republican campaign to gerrymander redistricting in 2021," Rodriguez said. "Texas Attorney General Paxton showed his hand when he went to bat for the citizenship question and asked for it to be included ‘to give state legislatures the best available source of citizenship data’ for redistricting."

The White House has suggested the addition of a citizenship question is meant to safeguard the voting process, a claim reiterated by spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders during a Tuesday press briefing. Yet longitudinal studies have shown voter fraud to be infinitesimal to the point that it can barely be registered statistically.

In Texas, Gov. Greg Abbott has used perceptions of voter fraud to appeal to his base, only to expose himself to rebuttals showing the negligible nature of the non-existent scourge. Voter ID requirements were crafted in Texas as a result of such political posturing — considered arguably the nation's most draconian voting laws — before courts demanded a revamping given inherent violations of the Voting Rights Act in effectively marginalizing whole blocs of voters. Attorney General Ken Paxton has aggressively defended the state's stringent voter identification requirements even while being forced to alter them in accordance to federal law.

Rodriguez dismissed the same justification given in regard to the Census question on residents' citizenship proposed by Trump's justice department: "This question is unnecessary for enforcement of the Voting Rights Act, and AG Paxton’s disregard for the numerous federal court rulings of intentional discrimination by the legislature that have been handed down to his office and promptly appealed casts doubt on his stated intentions."

The added question jeopardizes the amount of federal funding that is contingent on population counts, Rodriguez added: “From healthcare to housing, Texas and its cities rely on the hundreds of billions of dollars in federal funding they receive based on the number of people who live here to provide crucial services. The citizenship question is a political power play that only stands to hurt Texans and minimize the growing Latino population’s representation in the government without serving a compelling public interest."

He called on Abbott to request the citizenship question not be implemented in the next Census count: “As Policy Chair of the Mexican American Legislative Caucus, I stand with MALC Vice Chair González and House Border Caucus Chair Blanco in asking Governor Greg Abbott and AG Paxton to lead for all Texans and request that the U.S. Commerce Department remove the citizenship question from the 2020 Census."

>>> Image via Shutterstock