There have been some interesting ideas floated around about the census in recent years. One of the primary purposes of the census is the apportionment of congressional seats, which makes one wonder - why do we count people who are in the country illegally along with citizens?
The Constitution is rather terse on the subject of the census; Article I, Section 2 has the relevant language:
The actual Enumeration shall be made within three Years after the first Meeting of the Congress of the United States, and within every subsequent Term of ten Years, in such Manner as they shall by Law direct.
That would seem to leave the option on the table for an ad hoc census; the Constitution says "within every subsequent term of ten years," which would appear to leave the option for doing it more than once within that interval; that's something, I suppose, that the courts would have to hash out, because sure as I'm sitting here, there will be court challenges to any such proposal.
But Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, as is so frequently the case, has another good proposal: limit the census to a tally of U.S. citizens.
As Governor DeSantis points out in this video segment:
(On the census) I think you have to do it once every ten years, of course, that doesn't mean you can't do it more than every ten years, under the Constitution. They should do it, and count people who are legally allowed to be here. How many seats would California lose if you only counted lawful people, citizens? They would lose a lot of seats, because they're a sanctuary state. For us, we would stand to gain because we did not spend money to try to count illegals, because I don't think that's constitutionally proper. That is also only going to be resolved by the U.S. Supreme Court, because I do think the Trump administration is going to put in for a census that is not going to count foreign nationals.
This would almost certainly be up to the Supreme Court, in the end, to decide.
The problem in all this is that the language of the Constitution doesn't include any descriptions of who should be counted in the census; the only statement is that "free persons" be counted:
Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons.
It doesn't state "citizens," which one would think leaves the matter open. Congress could pass a legislative solution, or the president could simply order a mid-term census of citizens and (if we wish to be generous) permanent residents, but if he did so, we can expect the lawsuits to arrive with the speed of a fox leaping on a mouse.
Read More: Report: Four of Every Five Illegal Aliens May Be Christians. So What?
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With that said, this is a fight we should accept, and gladly. The Founders could not possibly have foreseen the current situation, with a failed narco-state on our southern border and millions allowed in illegally by a befuddled incompetent in the White House. That's almost certainly why the Constitution is rather mute on that aspect of the census. But people who are here illegally, who cannot vote, who are not a part of our body politic, should not be included in the count that apportions congressional seats. The Constitution gives the states broad powers over elections and districting, but the census is a federal matter, and now is the time to take this thing on and end it, one way or another. No more non-citizens in the census. Americans only.
Editor’s Note: Democrat politicians and their radical supporters will do everything they can to interfere with and threaten ICE agents enforcing our immigration laws.
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