Thread by @hansilowang

Today is Thursday.

It may be the last day your household can get counted in the #2020Census at My2020Census.gov because this happened last night:
npr.org/2020/10/07/920…

2. If you're wondering why the Trump administration wants to end #2020Census counting early, the court filing to the Supreme Court says it wants to give the Census Bureau a chance to meet the legal deadline of Dec. 31 for reporting new state population counts to the president...

3. ...but since May, Census Bureau career officials have said meeting that Dec. 31 is no longer possible because of the pandemic. We've also passed Sept. 30 and Oct. 5 -- dates that the administration has told courts it needed to stop counting by to meet Dec. 31 deadline...

4. ...so why is the Trump administration so determined to try to meet this Dec. 31 deadline that it's launched multiple failed attempts to end counting early and pushed the bureau to cut down the time for quality checks, increasing the risk of an incomplete and inaccurate count?

5. Trump benefits from getting counts by 12/31 bc even if he's not re-elected, it allows him to try to omit unauthorized immigrants from numbers that determine each state’s share of House seats despite Constitution's requirement to include "whole number of persons in each state."

6. A federal court in New York has ruled that President Trump does not have the authority to exclude unauthorized immigrants from the census numbers used to reapportion House seats among the states.
npr.org/2020/09/10/908…

7. Trump is now trying to get the Supreme Court to overturn that ruling & allow him to try to make an unprecedented change to who counts in the numbers that determine not only each state's share of House seats but also Electoral College votes through 2030.
npr.org/2020/09/16/911…

8. How long the courts allow the the #2020Census schedule to last -- including time for counting and running critical quality checks on the results -- has major implications on how much power your vote has in determining who becomes the next U.S. president in 2024 and 2028.

9. It also affects the quality of the census data used to determine how state and local voting districts are redrawn next year.

But if you're not interested in political power...

10. ...let me remind you that your community's census count is used to determine your community's share of some $1.5 trillion a year in federal tax dollars that fund health care, education, roads and emergency services.

There's a lot of power and money behind the #2020Census.

11. By the way, back in April, it was President Trump who told the public the #2020Census should get *more* time, including a 120-day extension to the Dec. 31 deadline: "This is called a situation that has to be ... I think 120 days isn't nearly enough."
npr.org/2020/09/18/911…

12. And yes, I have the receipt:
c-span.org/video/?c486847…

13. UPDATE: A Supreme Court ruling on the Trump administration's request to end #2020Census counting soon is not expected until after 10 a.m. ET on Oct. 10. That's when a court brief is due from challengers of census schedule changes, per a request from Justice Elena Kagan.