Thread by @JessicaPost

This is good. But not that good. In fact, it might be bad in the long run. But for now, we’ve dodged a bullet. Here’s why the ruling on the citizenship question on the census is good, and why our work isn’t done yet. 1/
vox.com/2019/1/15/1818…

Last year, the Trump Administration proposed adding a question to the census that would have forced every American household to record whether they and other members of their household were US citizens. 2/

Judge Furman struck this down, but not because it’s unconstitutional or a very bad idea, but because they were sloppy in how they made the decision. This can – and almost certainly will – be appealed by the Trump Administration, likely up to the conservative-leaning SCOTUS 3/

Here’s why this matters: The census is supposed to count *everybody* in the United States, including citizens, noncitizens, and even undocumented immigrants. This is how we determine representation and allocate resources. 4/

Including a citizenship question, or even floating the idea of one, discourages people from answering the census honestly or even at all, which disproportionately undercounts people of color, immigrants, and people in low-income housing. 5/

https://twitter.com/JessicaPost/status/986697698496704512

This can lead to fewer legislative and congressional districts, packing people of color, immigrants, and people in low-income housing – who often vote Democratic - into one district because they weren't counted. 6/

Their votes are diluted because they were never counted. And when voters try to challenge these unfair districts in court, they won’t have accurate census data to prove that they weren’t fairly counted, giving Republicans a free pass to gerrymander. 7/

This also affects the distribution of a state’s resources for things like education, roads, hospitals, and Medicaid. The people who need the resources still exist, but the inaccurate numbers say otherwise, and money gets redistributed elsewhere. 8/

Why is this such a huge deal now? With major presidential, congressional, and legislative races happening in 2020, how and WHO draws your legislative and congressional district lines REALLY matters. 9/

35 state legislatures are responsible for drawing their legislative districts and/or their congressional districts. 10/
brennancenter.org/analysis/who-d…

So if the census has already scared people from reporting and the population count is wrong, then the states with Republican-led legislatures can keep on gerrymandering undercounted districts and diverting resources with no consequence. 11/

But this is all part of the Republican plan. They don’t want you to vote! They don’t want you to vote because they know they won’t win. We saw that in North Dakota, New Hampshire, Texas, Wisconsin, North Carolina, Florida, Georgia, and others in 2018. 12/
nytimes.com/2018/11/03/us/…

Still, we saw voters fighting back. In Florida, voters overwhelmingly voted to restore the voting rights of formerly incarcerated people. People overcame incredible odds to get marginalized communities to the polls, and we had record turnout for a midterm election 13/

But now Republicans want to take it one step further. They don’t even want to count you, especially if you’re a personal of color or an immigrant. Why? Because they’d lose. 14/

Nevada, a state Trump narrowly lost to Hillary, recorded the greatest population growth in the country between 2017-2018. Nevada leans Democrat and has one of the fastest-growing Latino populations in the West, a demographic not too keen on Trump. 15/

Arizona’s population growth ranked 4th in the nation. In 2016, Trump barely won the state, but in 2018 Sen. Kyrsten Sinema eked out a win, the state’s first Democratic Senator in over 3 decades. 16/
newsweek.com/donald-trump-2…

In Florida, a notorious swing state, 1 million formerly incarcerated people just won back the right to vote. And what a shocker 🤯 – Republicans are already trying to stop it. 17/
washingtonpost.com/opinions/flori…

The country is changing, and the only way Republicans know how to hold onto power is to rig the game. We gained 8 new Democratic legislative majorities last cycle *despite* heavily gerrymandered maps. 18/

And this year, in November, we’ll have the chance to flip both the Virginia House and Senate - we only need to flip two seats in both. Then a Democratic majority will draw the congressional and legislative district lines there. 19/

Trump and Republicans WILL fight this citizenship question ruling because it’ll scare people from completing the census. The threat has already done irreparable damage. They don’t want you to vote. They don’t want to even count you. But we will continue to fight. 20/20