The Next Front in the Republican War on Voting Rights

On July 11, a visibly agitated Donald Trump appeared in the White House Rose Garden to announce that his administration was dropping its bid to add a citizenship question to the 2020 census. Census Bureau researchers predicted it could lead to 9 million people not filling out the census. But, Trump said defiantly, “I’m here to say we are not backing down on our effort to determine the citizenship status of the United States population.”

Trump then made a move that could still turn citizenship data into a political tool to boost the influence of white Repub­lican areas. He announced an executive order calling on federal agencies to send all existing information on who is and isn’t a citizen to the Department of Commerce, which oversees the Census Bureau.

It’s long been a bedrock principle of American democracy that elected officials represent all of their constituents, whether or not they are eligible to vote, but Trump wants to change that.

Mother Jones' Voting Rights Reporter Ari Berman dives into how Trump and his allies want to count out minorities and shift political power to whiter, more Republican areas.
#2020Census #Citizenship #Trump #Gerrymandering #VotingRights

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