Senator Murray Cosponsors Legislation to Prevent Trump Administration from Politicizing Census with Citizenship Question

(Washington, D.C.) – U.S. Senator Patty Murray (D-WA) joined Senators Bob Menendez, Cory Booker (both D-N.J.) Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii) and Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) to reintroduce legislation to prohibit the Secretary of Commerce from including any question regarding one’s citizenship or immigration status on the U.S. census. The Every Person Counts Act (S. 201) also amends Title XIII of the United States Code to clarify that each decennial census shall tabulate the total number of persons in each state.

Last week, a U.S. District Judge ordered the administration to abort its plans to add a citizenship question to the 2020 Census.  However, with a June deadline to print the final census questionnaire, the administration is now pressuring the Supreme Court to review this case and decide whether a question about citizenship can be included on next year’s census survey.

“The entire purpose of the census is to ensure the federal government is using accurate information to determine representation in Congress and to fairly distribute federal funding for everything from grants for hospitals, to schools, and more—and it should never, ever be wielded as a political weapon,” said Sen. Murray. “The Trump administration’s attempts to intimidate immigrants and entire communities in Washington state and around our country is wrong, and a major disservice to everyone. I’m proud to cosponsor this legislation and do everything in my power to make clear that the majority of Americans won’t stand for this administration’s hateful, intimidation tactics that only seek to divide us rather than carry out sound and reasonable policy.”

The bill is also co-sponsored by Sens. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.), Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), Kamala Harris (D-Calif.), Jack Reed (D-R.I.), and Tina Smith (D-Minn.) Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.). 

The Census Bureau must, by law, provide Congress with the final wording of the census questionnaire by March 31.

The Every Person Counts Act would:

• Require Title XIII of the United States Code to be amended to clarify that each decennial census shall tabulate the total number of persons in each state;
• Prohibit the Secretary of Commerce from including a U.S. citizenship or immigration status question on the census;
• Forbid the construction of any rule that would permit or require the census to exclude populations due to their age, or federal employees and their dependents, and Armed Services personnel stationed abroad, stationed abroad, or other persons outside the United States from being counted as residents of the states to which they usually reside.