Census question may be dead, but Trump’s backup plan could still reshape political map

President Donald Trump surrendered his legal fight earlier this month to ask about citizenship on the upcoming census, but his administration is marching forward on a Republican strategy that could upend the way legislative districts are drawn nationwide to the benefit of the party.

Trump nodded to policy issues such as health care and education as reasons he issued a July 11 executive order for the government to compile citizenship information in a different way. And he accused “far-left Democrats” of being determined to “conceal the number of illegal aliens in our midst.”

But he also referred to how it could be used in the next round of redistricting after the 2020 census — a move critics suggest is the real reason the Trump administration wants to find out where noncitizens reside.

View the complete July 23 article by Todd Ruger on The Roll Call website here.