A bipartisan group of senators urged the Commerce Department to rescind its proposed rule that would exclude most noncitizens from the census population count used for determining congressional representation, according to a copy of a letter, shared with TPM, that the senators sent to Commerce and Census Bureau officials.
Led by retiring Sen. Gary Peters (D-MI) and Sen. Andy Kim (D-NJ), and joined by Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), the group of 26 senators said the proposed rule is unconstitutional, hamstrings civil rights law enforcement, and would result in undercounts that compromise residents’ political representation and federal funding distribution.
Peters is the top Democrat on the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, which oversees the Census Bureau. Kim is the top Democrat on the Senate subcommittee in charge of decennial census oversight.
“In its attempt to undermine the data used for the enforcement of civil and voting rights laws,” the letter said, “the Bureau will degrade the accuracy of all other federal survey data, particularly for small and rural geographic areas.”
In addition to excluding most noncitizens from the count, the Census Bureau’s proposed rule would also engage in widespread use of tax records to identify respondents’ usual residence for the first time in modern history, and stop collecting data on race and ethnicity. The proposal also includes plans to add an immigration status question to the 10-year census, a proposal that experts told TPM could have even more dramatic effects than the citizenship question officials tried to add to the census during Trump’s first term.
The senators plan to submit the letter before the public comment period on the proposed rule ends today, just one day before the midterm elections.
“The proposed rule would also cause communities across the country to be counted inaccurately, jeopardizing their fair representation in Congress and access to billions of federal dollars for education, health care, and public safety services,” the letter said.
Senators also highlighted the threat the proposed rule posed to tribal nations, including Alaska Native communities.
“The elimination of data about race and ethnicity would particularly undermine the federal government’s ability to meet its responsibilities and obligations to tribal governments,” the senators’ letter said.
Murkowski has long joined Democrats in opposition to Trump-led changes to the census that would seek to identify and exclude noncitizens from the population count used for congressional apportionment. In 2024, she joined Democrats to block an amendment from Sen. Bill Hagerty (R-TN) to an omnibus appropriations bill that would’ve done just that. And back in 2018, Murkowski called attention to the negative impacts of an undercount on Alaska’s tribal communities caused by Republican interference with the census.
Senate opposition to the Census Bureau’s proposed rule was also joined by more centrist Democrats, including Senator John Fetterman (D-PA).
It’s the second example of congressional pushback and the first bipartisan congressional effort to oppose the Bureau’s proposal, which experts have decried as both unconstitutional and just a generally bad idea. House Democrats, led by Democrats on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, and joined by the congressional Hispanic, Black and Asian caucuses, opposed the proposal in a letter to Census Bureau Acting Director George Cook submitted last week.
A group of data policy experts and former Census Bureau officials called Hands Off Our Census has been urging individuals and groups to comment in opposition to the proposal.
According to data from the group as of Oct. 21, 85% of all public comments opposed the rule.
Anyone else tired of Congress fighting over the same damn thing?
Is it my imagination? Does Murkowski seems more likely to cast a vote that does something than Concerned Suzie Q?
Do you mean Frau FurrowedBrau?