A national census is a nuisance, right? Once every ten years you have to tell the government information about yourself and your family that doesn’t seem like it’s any of their business and is another inconvenience to look forward to, like paying taxes once a year. What a pain!
But the census is codified in the United States Constitution, and it’s for very good reason. States have two Senate representatives each, but the number of House representatives is determined by the number of people residing in that state, so an accurate count of those people is actually a critical aspect of our democracy. Without an accurate count the representation of the people is undermined, a Representative Republic literally impossible. So while annoying and seemingly invasive, the census is a necessary evil, the tool that makes every one of us count.
When the census came around this last time it had the misfortune of landing within the span of the Trump administration, and if a thing can be corrupted it was well served by that twist of fate. Trump demanded that people identify as citizens, essentially requiring people to “out” themselves if they were here illegally. The legal status of these people has little relevance to their impact on a state’s needs and resources, but it would almost certainly drive those people to not participate in the census, resulting in misleading numbers to make vital decisions on, and impacting the number of representatives a state might be due. Ultimately Trump’s attempt to send millions of U.S. residents scurrying into the shadows failed the way so many things Trump-ish do. They were overturned in the courts, found to be illegal on constitutional grounds. Unfortunately, the damage had been done, and the trust in the census as being a transparent and independent recording of the humanity within our borders was gone. Many immigrants, both documented and not, had lost their faith and would avoid the census takers like they were carrying Covid.
This was not an unforeseen consequence. It was a Republican strategy. With large numbers of Hispanic voters moving into states like Texas, Florida and Arizona, increases in representation becomes problematic for the GOP. With new district lines needing to be drawn, the greater number makes it even more difficult to carve them carefully enough to have the new citizens impart as little impact as possible. The other large number of immigrants to some of these states are workers coming from California to take advantage of job opportunities that have emerged in the large urban areas around Tucson and Houston. All of these potentially Democratic votes have to be managed and castrated whenever possible.
With gerrymandering under greater scrutiny than it has been in the past thanks to successful legal challenges to it in both North Carolina and Pennsylvania, the Republican Party machine has two strategies available to try to defend what has become part of the Jim Crow 2021 tactics that define them. Subtlety or sledgehammer.
Subtlety would be coming up with nuanced legal responses when the inevitable legal challenges to the voter suppression they are rolling out all over the country comes. This would be a tough route in normal times, as the racism and clear cynicism of the tactics is very hard to credibly defend, but the courts don’t look like they did ten years ago and it might work, but it would be tough.
The other is the sledgehammer, and that will look similar but the credibility of the arguments won’t really be the point. With a big middle finger and a smile they will ride into courts with little defense if they are confident that a good defense will not be necessary, that as it goes up the chain in our court system the argument will be less important than the people they present the argument to. If the war is already won, the battles are irrelevant.
So much is at stake for our country with all of this. Fair representation. Voting rights. Civil rights. The blind application of justice both on our streets and in our courts. Republicans are already representing tens of millions fewer Americans while maintaining a near balance in federal government and illegitimate majorities, sometime large ones, at many state level legislatures. What they fight for does not represent their constituencies, often times fighting for things the rank and file of their own party are clearly standing against. With Florida, Texas and Arizona all being awarded more representatives as the result of a tainted census, if the GOP is successful in defending voter suppression as an accepted good we could see the new seats going to them and the balance of power in the House of Representatives swing to Republicans and any hope of progress in the Biden administration will grind to a very abrupt halt.
HR1 is the bill with the answers. It is chock full of the types of reforms that are absolutely essential if we are to save a glimmer of the ideas that founded this country. It has absolutely no hope of passing in a split Senate while being protected by the filibuster rule that does not apply to House votes. If the filibuster rules are not changed substantially or eliminated entirely, 2022 looms as a dire moment for the history of our country.
Enter Senators Joe Manchin (D-W.Va) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-Az). Neither are inclined to change the rules in any way, effectively making this a country ruled by the minority party, 180 degrees from the Founders intent. Representative government is being stolen right before our eyes, the Great American Experiment in representative government being dismantled in plain sight.
The cynical, devious and malevolent tactics being employed by the Republican Party, tactics that have been being crafted and activated for forty years now, are coming to fruition, the final descent into a fascist state being codified into law. The Supreme Court disabled the Civil Rights Act that prevented states from enacting the kind of laws that they are now using to make your vote irrelevant and in quick order the states went to work making voting a symbolic gesture, signifying nothing. The same Court let loose corporate America to use the one resource that they have and the common voter doesn’t. Money. Unlimited amounts of influential money to sway poorly educated consumers of endless amounts of media that wash over them impersonating truth.
I’m a progressive. We have the majority. Both Houses of Congress and the Presidency.
And we’re losing.
You’ve heard that elections have consequences. We are on the very precipice of having to realize they don’t.