Democratic Rep. William Lacy Clay of Missouri claimed Thursday that the Trump administration is trying to limit the political power of minority voters by adding a citizenship question to the 2020 census.
Clay also called on Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross to resign over his handling of the census, as Ross testified before the House Oversight Committee.
“Mr. Secretary, you lied to Congress, you misled the American people, and you are complicit in the Trump administration’s intent to suppress the growing political power of the non-white population,” Clay said. “You have already done great harm to census 2020, and you have zero credibility, and you should, in my opinion, resign.”
“Is there a question in that, sir?” Ross responded, before asking to take a break.
[Related: Democrats question Commerce Secretary Ross on census citizenship question]
.@LacyClayMO1 calls on Wilbur Ross to resign: ‘You are complicit in the Trump administration’s intent to suppress the growing political power of the non-white population’ pic.twitter.com/6f3RQegGoT
— Paul Conner (@paconner) March 14, 2019
House Democrats argued that emails provided to the committee show that, contrary to Ross’ claims, Ross was interested in adding a citizenship question to the census before the Department of Justice asked the bureau to do so in December 2017.
Ross has previously testified that the citizenship question was added “solely” at the request of DOJ. Ross, on Thursday, denied that he misled Congress about the origin of the question, which was most recently included on the 2000 census, under former President Bill Clinton’s administration.
Advocacy groups like the Brennan Center for Justice say such a question would cause fewer people to respond to the census, possibly skewing the appropriate number of members of the House of Representatives, and seats in the Electoral College. The Census Bureau’s proposed question would not ask about legal status, and Ross said that bureau officials face severe punishment for telling federal law enforcement officials about respondents’ answers.
