ABC News: Supreme Court to decide fate of citizenship question on 2020 census

Just weeks before the 2020 census questionnaire goes to print, the U.S. Supreme Court will decide whether the Trump administration can ask about citizenship.

Oral arguments in the case Tuesday will center on how the government can get the most accurate headcount — and whom the census is supposed to be counting.

The stakes are significant because the census determines the apportionment of seats in Congress and how billions in federal tax dollars are distributed over the next decade. …

New York state and several civil rights groups sued Ross, calling his stated rationale a pretext for discrimination and a politically motivated attempt to generate an undercount in heavily Democratic areas.

By the administration’s own estimates, asking about citizenship is projected to drive down the census count by about 6.5 million people, mostly among immigrants and their families.

“The citizenship question is a bald-faced attempt to racially rig the census, undercount communities of color and undermine fair representation which our democracy relies upon,” said Karen Hobert Flynn, president of Common Cause, a nonpartisan public interest group.