The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People is suing the Trump administration in an effort to prevent the upcoming census from undercounting African-Americans and other people of color, resulting in inequities in representation and a loss of federal dollars.
The NAACP filed its lawsuit in conjunction with Prince George’s County, Md., and seeks to compel the Commerce Department’s Census Bureau to conduct a “full and fair” census in 2020.
“The census must not serve as a mechanism for diluting the political power of African-American communities and depriving them of their fair share of federal resources for an entire decade,” said Derrick Johnson, the NAACP president and CEO. “We are prepared to fight against any plan that effectively turns the census into another form of voter suppression and economic disempowerment in our communities.”
The NAACP said funding for the 2020 census is inadequate and the Census Bureau is understaffed, which boost the possibility of undercounts in communities of color.
The Government Accountability Office labeled the upcoming decennial census a “high risk” program last year.
“When the Census Bureau undercounts my community, we lose political power, and fewer of our federal tax dollars end up coming home to fix our roads, run our schools, and fund our federal programs,” said Brian Ross, president of the NAACP’s Prince George’s County Branch and a plaintiff in the case. “We felt these effects in the aftermath of the 2010 census, and all signs indicate that the 2020 Census will be even worse.”
The NAACP’s lawsuit regarding the 2020 census is the latest filed against the Trump administration after the Commerce Department said it would be including a citizenship question on the upcoming census in an effort to ensure better enforcement of the Voting Rights Act.
California Attorney General Xavier Becerra is challenging the inclusion of a citizenship question in court, and New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman is leading a separate multi-state lawsuit against the Trump administration regarding the citizenship question.
