“Taking the Census” by Francis William Edmonds (1854)
“My bill,” US Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) tweeted in June, “will require the U.S. Census Bureau to conduct a new census immediately upon enactment of the bill. In conducting the new census of the U.S. population, it shall require questions determining the citizenship of each individual, and count US citizens only.”
The money shot: “[T]he bill will direct states to immediately begin a redistricting of all U.S. House seats process using only the population of United States citizens.”
Naturally, US president Donald Trump supports the idea.
So does Florida governor Ron DeSantis.
Why? Because Republicans want to rig future elections by re-drawing — that is, re-gerrymandering — the American political map to benefit themselves.
One problem with the idea: It’s wholly, completely, and unquestionably illegal. According to Article I, Section 2 of the “Supreme Law of the Land,” the US Constitution:
“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. The actual Enumeration shall be made within three Years after the first Meeting of the Congress of the United States, and within every subsequent Term of ten Years.”
The “Indians not taxed” and “all other persons” sections are no longer applicable. Native Americans became US citizens (and started getting taxed) in 1924; “all other persons” meant slaves, and chattel slavery was banned in 1865.
The Constitution requires the census to be conducted once within every ten-year period after 1790. It’s already been conducted for this period. An “interim re-do” would not be a valid census.
The Constitution requires an “actual enumeration” of every person in the country, citizen or not.
The Constitution requires apportionment of US House seats according to THAT “enumeration,” not to a count of citizens.
Constitutionally, MTG’s dumb idea is dead on arrival.
We don’t bother much with the Constitution anymore, though. And why should we? As Lysander Spooner noted in 1870, it either got us where we are now or didn’t prevent us from getting here. So it’s hard to argue with a straight face that it’s worth much.
But let’s roll the clock back to BEFORE the Constitution, to reasons for the American Revolution.
Does “no taxation without representation” ring any bells?
“Imposing taxes on us without our consent” featured in the Declaration of Independence’s list of grievances against King George III.
Non-citizens can’t vote, but the fiction used to justify shaking them down for taxes is that they’re “represented” in Congress by virtue of being counted for House apportionment in the census.
MTG and friends want to abandon even that farfetched excuse in a ham-handed attempt to cling to political power for just a little longer.
And if it works, it WILL be for just a little bit longer.
They’re playing with fire, and when you do that you eventually get burned.
Thomas L. Knapp (X: @thomaslknapp | Bluesky: @knappster.bsky.social | Mastodon: @knappster) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.
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