Common Cause Files Brief in Challenge to Addition of Citizenship Question to 2020 Census
Today, Common Cause, joined by current and former elected and appointed Republican officials, filed an amici brief in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York in support of the New York State’s challenge to the addition of a citizenship question to the 2020 Census. The brief filed in State of New York v. United States Department of Commerce, emphasizes that the United States Constitution, and subsequently the Fourteenth Amendment, guarantees the right of every resident of the United States to be represented by a member of Congress. The Commerce Department’s addition of the citizenship question, the brief argues, will cause undercounts in areas with large non-citizen populations resulting in a Congress that will not be equally apportioned by population as the Founders intended.