Count All The People

The Fourteenth Amendment sets out a uncomplicated dominion for the interstate resources allotment of political ability inward the United States: “Representatives shall hold upward apportioned with the several States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole issue of persons inward each State, excluding Indians non taxed.” With this sentence, 150 years agone this month, the Constitution obliterated the three-fifths clause. Later, only nether a century ago, nosotros incorporated all Native Americans into the trunk politic yesteryear statute, in addition to then in that place are no to a greater extent than “Indians non taxed.” These changes get got wrought a beautifully straightforward rule: our federal authorities allocates political ability according to “the whole issue of persons.” Not only the citizens. Not only the adults. Not only the people with valid immigration status, or the people a province has decided inward its wisdom to brand eligible to vote. All persons.

This hard-won bedrock constitutional regulation structures the entire American political lodge nether our feet. But that doesn’t hateful Americans are all aware of it or sympathize it. To about Americans today (especially a lot of Republicans) it seems form of crazy that nosotros count non-voters such as children in addition to fifty-fifty non-citizens, regardless of immigration status, inward allocating political power. If they can’t vote, these critics ask, why create they count?

That mode of thinking is directly underwriting a flurry of profoundly ill-conceived activism yesteryear Republicans across the province who are aiming inward a diversity of ways to circumscribe the railroad train of persons who count inward our processes for allocating political power. One business of assault is a attempting to add together a citizenship interrogation to the Census inward an drive to brand such exclusionary redistricting easier for states in addition to localities—while at the same time, inward a fortuitous nativist twofer, suppressing the Census count itself inward immigrant communities. The partisan stakes inward all this are to a greater extent than ofttimes than non pretty obvious (although not entirely). But sometimes the commentary near partisan effects obscures the underlying constitutional regulation at stake.

Today inward the Washington Post, I get got an op ed offering a defense forcefulness of the regulation that nosotros should count all the people. It’s pretty short; the defense forcefulness is condensed. If you’re interested inward a to a greater extent than in-depth discussion, you lot tin get got a await at this essay I lately published inward a symposium inward the William & Mary Law Review. It seems to me that nosotros are directly inward the early on stages of a twenty-first century reckoning with the interrogation of who counts—on the Census, inward apportionment, in addition to across federal in addition to province redistricting. The centre underlying questions across these domains are fairly consistent. I mean value in that place are potent justifications for leaving inward house the small town reached inward 1789 in addition to 1868, afterwards magnified outward yesteryear the centre reapportionment revolution decisions of 1964: nosotros count all the people, in addition to nosotros all count equally. I too mean value in that place is far to a greater extent than function to hold upward done inward this area. This combat is only beginning. I write this spider web log post service inward the promise that about readers may create upward one's heed to write inward this area.