House Approves Bill To Add Citizenship Question To Census, Change How Congressional Seats Are Apportioned
by Karen Faulkner, Worthy News Correspondent
(Worthy News) – Voting along party lines, the Republican-led House has approved a bill that would break with 230 years of practice by adding a question on citizenship to the census: the move would cut non-citizens from the decennial count and reduce the number of seats held by states with high non-citizen populations relative to other states.
The bill was introduced by Arizona Republican congressman Rep. Andy Biggs and passed a 206-202 party-line vote on Wednesday, the Washington Times reports. In explaining his reason for introducing the bill, Biggs said political power should not be based on non-citizens, especially those who are undocumented. Referencing the border crisis, Biggs said the current situation “has distorted the population and skewed the one-person, one-vote standard,” Biggs said in a statement.
Leading the opposition to the bill, Maryland Democrat Rep. Jamie Raskin said in a statement that the US Constitution apportions seats based on the “whole number of persons in each state” and that the US Supreme Court has reiterated this in its decisions. “For all of you textualists out there, the plain reading of the text of the Constitution is clear,” Rasikin said. “For all of the constitutional originalists out there, the original purposes have been carefully articulated and never rebutted,” Raskin added.
The Biden administration has also expressed its opposition to the measure.
“The Biden-Harris Administration is committed to ensuring that the census remains as accurate as possible and free from political interference, and to upholding the longstanding principle of equal representation enshrined in our Constitution, census statutes, and historical tradition,” the White House said in an official statement of policy.
The proposed legislation now moves to the Democratic-led Senate for consideration, where it is not expected to be approved.
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