There is an article in today’s Times that suggests that the 2030 census will count only citizens, at least for the purpose of deciding congressional representation. Although that takes place after the 2028 election, they set the rules and procedures long in advance and are preparing them now. Is there any possibility that they will do that but base the congressional representation based on the number of the citizens plus “3/5 of all other persons”?
Well, neither one would be legal, so who knows?
I thought that went away with the 14th amendment, it’d be out of left field but maybe if scotus overturns that amendment with this birthright citizenship BS they’ll bring it back.
I heard on NPR, in the wake of the recent Supreme Court decision to restrict universal injunctions, that there may be a lot less appeals from the government to the Supremes, because now, the only way some rulings can apply to the country as a whole is to be heard by SCOTUS. If a lower court rules against Trump, the government can take the L but only for that specific case. They can still continue to violate the law against everyone else who isn’t a party to the suit, as long as they don’t appeal their loss to the Supreme Court where it can make a country-wide-binding decision.
This was specifically in the context of birthright citizenship. The commentator opined that ending birthright citizenship is so blatantly unconstitutional that, in the future, the government is likely to violate it but not appeal those courts that rule against it, so that the Supreme Court will not entirely stop the government. Meanwhile everyone who never sued or didn’t have the resources to fight it will still have their citizenship stripped.
The commentator did mention class action suits, but said that they were harder and less universally-applied than the erstwhile universal injunctions.
I know this is an effort to weaken California’s Congressional representation, but is there any source for how this would affect other states? A quick google didn’t turn up much for me. I’d think Texas and other Southern (red) states would get the brunt of it.
SCOTUS will have to take up the birthright citizenship issue on the merits before too long, as I’m sure there will be either unanimity among the circuit courts that it is blatantly unconstitutional, in which case the administration’s only recourse is to appeal to SCOTUS, or most of the circuits will reject the administration’s position but one or more (I’m looking at you, Fifth Circuit) will accept it and there’ll be a split among the circuits.
Hardly anyone understands the 3/5th compromise and use it as a silly gotcha. When in reality it is a reverse gotcha.
Yup, counting property as 3/5ths of a person and giving the slave states more Congressional representation was the wrong thing to do.
(If they’re property then they don’t count at all.)
Even if the 3/5 clause were still part of the constitution instead of superseded, applying this formation would violate it.
The clause in Article I, Section 2, read:
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.
Persons were counted, not citizens. Who held citizenship at the time is a complicated issue. People were British citizens until the formal ending of the war, and then state citizens, each with different rules and privileges. The Articles of Confederation essentially extended the rights of a citizen of one state to be honored in all states.
The Constitution uses the word “citizen” in several Articles, but its impact on ordinary people was slight. State citizenship rights were again extended nationwide; otherwise it wasn’t much of an issue unless you were running for office. Trying to determine the number of citizens in 1789 is tough. The federal census of 1790 didn’t ask either.
The first Naturalization Act wasn’t passed until 1790. But that applied only to free white men. The Act says “persons,” true, but since women could not vote and were generally considered the property of their husbands, few cared whether they were citizens or not.
Not until the 14th Amendment did citizenship officially flip so that federal citizenship overrode state citizenship.
All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.
The census does not count citizens, it counts people. Representation does not depend on birthright citizenship.
That said, many other factors affect the apportionment of representatives. If people are too scared to have their names in the census then population counts will drop. If that happens, though, too many red states would also suffer.
I think it was a SCOTUS ruling saying to count residents not citizens but don’t quote me.
So Trump needs to convince the Courts that illegal immigrants are not only not subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, they’re not even free people.
Lemme fix that for ya,
they’re not even people.
I’ve given up trying to explain it to people. It’s always people on the left who think they have to be correct and refuse to listen anyway.
It would clearly be unconstitutional. The Constitution says that representatives shall be apportioned according to the number of free persons (including indentured servants, who don’t exist any more), excluding “Indians not taxed” (which again is obsolete, because Native Americans do pay federal taxes), and three fifths of “other persons” (which was a euphemism for slaves, who also no longer exist).
You could make a case that people in prison should not be counted toward representation. But everyone else, including immigrants (documented and undocumented) are free persons.
I expect Trump to try something like this, and for a lot of Republicans to go along with it, and that it will be challenged in court. It could make it up to the Supreme Court. If that court has any integrity left, it will rule that “free persons” means “free persons,” not just citizens. That’s a big “If,” considering the current state of the Supreme Court.
I started this thread under a false premise, not realizing that the 14th amendment did actually modify the representation section of the original constitution. Here is the relevant clause:
" 2: Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the Executive and Judicial officers of a State, or the members of the Legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such State, being twenty-one years of age,[15](file:///C:/downloads/usconst.html#n15) and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such State. [affects 2](file:///C:/downloads/usconst.html#n2)"
Notice that it says that representation is determined by the whole number of persons in that state. Not a word about citizens, immigrants, or sex. Then it goes on to enumerate reasons for not allowing to vote. Sex, citizenship status, age, convicted felons,… But that’s voting not for being counted. So the census bureau cannot simply ignore non-citizens. But Trump will try, maybe lose in a couple blue states and SCOTUS will rule that only people who sue will have to be counted.
Did you paste this from an AI assistant? What’s with the links to your downloads folder?
Are you suggesting that the Supreme Court has the power to “overturn” part of the Constitution? On what basis, then?
I mean, Trump doesn’t have the power to overturn the constitution with an executive order either but we’re in uncharted waters now. I have no idea how any of this will work.
I agree with what you have said. Nonetheless the Republican party has decided that only citizens will count for congressional representation. Five years later, SCOTUS might (or might not) conclude that this violates the constitution, but the damage will have been done.
Probably NY is the state most affected. A huge percentage of its population is not native born. And suppose they decide to omit Puerto Ricans.
On the basis that six outnumbers three. I.e. 2/3 > 3/5.
Number joke for you, Hari.