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U.S. Senators Benjamin L. Cardin (D-Md.) and Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) have signed on to legislation meant to shore up the Census by mandating additional reports and preventing unstudied changes.
The Census Improving Data and Enhanced Accuracy (Census IDEA) Act, introduced by Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii), would ban changes that have 鈥渘ot been properly researched, studied, and tested at least three years prior to the next decennial census date鈥� and submitted to Congress. The legislation would also require additional reports on the Census Bureau鈥檚 operational plans.
鈥淭he decennial census plays an instrumental role in shaping the logistics of our democracy by determining political representation, as well as the fair distribution of federal resources to critical state programs,鈥� Cardin said in a news release this week.
The legislation, originally聽聽in response to the Trump administration鈥檚聽聽to include a citizenship question on the 2020 Census, failed to pass before the decennial count got underway.
Trump later attempted to exclude undocumented immigrants from reapportionment counts, leading Maryland and other states to join a聽聽to stop the maneuver. The Census Bureau reportedly聽聽on Trump鈥檚 memo earlier this year.
鈥淯nder the last administration, we saw that presidential appointees were eager to politicize the Census with an unconstitutional question on citizenship,鈥� Schatz said in a separate news release earlier this week. 鈥淲hile we were able to stop that attempt, we need more protections to stop any kind of political inference in the future.鈥�
Van Hollen underscored the importance of the Census count in Maryland, and said the IDEA Act would prevent 鈥減artisan stunts鈥� from affecting the count.
鈥淚n the most recent census, Maryland stood to lose $18,000 in federal funds over ten years for every uncounted resident,鈥� Van Hollen said. 鈥淧resident Trump鈥檚 attempts to skew the results of the census for his own party鈥檚 political gain not only posed a risk to Maryland, but to our whole country.鈥�
Maryland retained eight seats in the U.S. House of Representatives according to聽聽from the Census Bureau, but state officials are still awaiting more specific data to begin the redistricting process. That data was delayed after the COVID-19 pandemic waylaid the Census count, with untabulated data set to release in August.
State officials have said they鈥檒l need roughly four weeks after the data is released to adjust the information to comply with Maryland law and have incarcerated people reallocated to their last known address.
