Everybody counts or nobody counts. That’s the moral tenet underlying the Harry Bosch detective novels written by Michael Connelly. Bosch believed that every victim mattered, no matter who they were or what they may have done.
The idea that everybody counts is particularly resonant for me right now because the census is happening in 2020. Since 1790, we have literally counted everyone every 10 years. That count determines how many representatives each state has in the House of Representatives. It also determines the levels of federal aid coming back to states and local communities.
The current administration planned to ask a question about citizenship on the census, a question that would have discouraged non-citizens from responding. Fortunately, that ill-considered attempt was blocked by the courts. So the 2020 census will count “the whole number of persons in each State” as the Constitution requires. The count is at the foundation of our election system. We are supposed to count everyone.
There have been four presidential elections where the popular vote winner did not win the electoral college vote. In 1876, Rutherford B. Hayes was sworn in as President; Samuel J. Tilden won the popular vote by less than one percent. In 1888, President Grover Cleveland lost the presidency to Benjamin Harrison in the Electoral College despite winning the popular vote by 0.8%.
But none of us remembered that when the 2000 election between Al Gore and George Bush rolled around. Hayes and Harrison are certainly not in the top rank of Presidents according to C-Span. The 2000 election reminded us all that we do not directly elect presidents. Al Gore won 0.5% more votes than George Bush, but he never became the president. And Hillary Clinton beat Donald Trump by 2.1% of the popular vote but it didn’t make her president either. The Electoral College, based on the number of Senators and Representatives, decided those votes.
The last census was in 2010. Everyone made a valiant effort to get a complete count. Federal, state and local districts were created based on the numbers from that census. Democrats and Republicans both understood the importance of the count, but Republicans understood that the balance of Congress both includes and goes beyond the census. As Karl Rove said, “He who controls redistricting can control Congress.” Republicans set out to control state legislatures in order to gerrymander congressional districts across the country. Democrats gerrymandered, too (Maryland is an example), but Republicans took it to new and never imagined extremes.
I think Democrats have re-learned over the last 10 years, and especially since 2016, that every election matters. Democrats have been successful in local elections like the Delaware County Council in Pennsylvania, which had been Republican controlled since the Civil War. While there has been significant focus on state and local races, right now Republicans control 29 of the 50 state legislatures. Democrats control 18. The other two (Alaska and Nebraska are Republican dominated according to the New York Times). The 2020 election isn’t just about the next president. It’s also about the legislatures that draw the districts for the next 10 years.
The census will also determine how federal and state dollars are allocated. Federal government funds the safety net, fuel assistance, Medicaid, SNAP, WIC, Head Start and early education and care, funding for food pantries, housing, substance use disorder and mental health treatment… it’s a long list. The people who need the help live in every state, red or blue.
April 1, 2020, is Census Day. I hope the urgency of the times will spur people to respond. And in a time when trust in government has been massively eroded it is also important to remind each other that, according to NYU’s Brennan Center for Justice, it is illegal for the Census Bureau to disclose census responses in any way that would personally identify a respondent; for anyone to see census responses except for employees of the Census Bureau, who are sworn to secrecy under the threat of criminal punishment; for the Bureau to disclose census responses to other government agencies; for data collected for the census to be used for any non-statistical purpose, such as immigration regulation or other law enforcement; and for the Bureau or any other federal agency to use census data to the detriment of the person to whom the information pertains.
Everybody counts or nobody counts. So, for the health and welfare of our people, and for the sake of our democracy, we must work together to ensure that our community members, young and old, citizen and non-citizen, rural and urban, detained, incarcerated, documented and un-documented, are counted.
Clare Higgins, of Northampton, a former mayor of the city, is executive director of the nonprofit Community Action Pioneer Valley. She can be reached at columnists@gazettenet.com.