A Census Bureau notice publishing October 5 moves the comment deadline on its residence rule to November 2. The rule would leave noncitizens without green cards out of House seat counts and bar race questions from the short form. The notice that publishes October 5 is titled as a scheduling change. Its one working sentence moves a date. The rule it extends does far more: it would count green-card holders for House seats, leave out other noncitizens, and bar race, ethnicity and sexual-orientation questions from the census short form. During public inspection, the notice drew 479 views. The fight over who counts is filed under its last four words. The September 10 rule calls the people it leaves out “not true inhabitants.” The 2020 criteria counted foreign citizens where they live and sleep most of the time, legal or not. The new test is “allegiance”, measured in records: tax filings after April 1, files from DHS, State and Treasury. The race ban touches the short form only; the American Community Survey keeps asking. No headline here says how many comments have been filed. Seats follow the count. A 2020 Pew estimate, reported by Roll Call, found that excluding undocumented immigrants alone would have moved three seats: California, Florida and Texas might have lost them, to the benefit of Alabama, Minnesota and Ohio. This rule reaches further than that estimate measured. A July 21, 2020 memorandum tried a similar exclusion; the Brennan Center says it failed.
