Dec. 12 2017
Dr. Ron Jarmin
Performing the Non-Exclusive Functions and Duties of the Director
U.S. Census Bureau
United States Department of Commerce
Washington, D.C. 20233-0001
Re: Request To Reinstate Citizenship Question On 2020 Census Questionnaire
Dear Dr. Jarmin:
The Department of Justice is committed to robust and evenhanded
enforcement of the Nation's civil rights laws and to free and fair elections for
all Americans. In furtherance of that commitment. I write on behalf of the
Department to formally request that the Census Bureau reinstate on the
2020 Census questionnaire a question regarding citizenship, formerly
included in the so-called “long form" census. This data is critical to the
Department’s enforcement of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act and its
important protections against racial discrimination in voting. To fully enforce
those requirements, the Department needs a reliable calculation of the
citizen voting-age population in localities where voting rights violations are
alleged or suspected. As demonstrated below, the decennial census
questionnaire is the most appropriate vehicle for collecting that data, and
reinstating a question on citizenship will best enable the Department to
protect all American citizens' voting rights under Section 2.
The Supreme Court has held that Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act prohibits
“vote dilution” by state and local jurisdictions engaged in redistricting, which
can occur when a racial group is improperly deprived of a single-member
district in which it could form a majority. See Thornburg v. Gingles, 478 U.S.
30, 50 (1986). Multiple federal courts of appeals have held that, where
citizenship rates are at issue in a vote-dilution case, citizen voting-age
population is the proper metric for determining whether a racial group could
constitute a majority in a single-member district See, e.g., Reyes v. City of
Farmers Branch, 586 F.3d 1019, 1023–24 (5th Cir. 2009); Barnett v. City of
Chicago, 141 F.3d 699, 704 (7th Cir. 1998); Negrn v. City of Miami Beach, 113
F.3d 1563,1567-69 (11th Cir. 1997); Romero v. City of Pomona, 883 F.2d
1418, 1426 (9th Cir. 1989), overruled in part on other grounds by Townsend
v. Holman Consulting Corp., 914 F.2d 1136, 1141 (9th Cir. 1990); see also
LULAC v. Perry, 548 U.S. 399, 423–442 (2006) (analyzing vote-dilution claim
by reference to citizen voting-age population).
The purpose of Section 2’s vote-dilution prohibition “is to facilitate
participation ... in our political process” by preventing unlawful dilution of the
vote on the basis of race. Campos v. City of Houston, 113 F.3d 544, 548 (5th

 Cir. 1997). Importantly, “[t]he plain language of section 2 of the Voting Rights
Act makes clear that its protections apply to United States citizens.” Id.
Indeed, courts have reasoned that “[t]he right to vote is one of the badges of
citizenship” and that “[t]he dignity and very concept of citizenship are
diluted if noncitizens are allowed to vote.” Barnett, 141 F.3d at 704. Thus, it
would be the wrong result for a legislature or a court to draw a singlemember district in which a numerical racial minority group in a jurisdiction
was a majority of the total voting-age population in that district but
“continued to be defeated at the polls” because it was not a majority of the
citizen voting-age population. Campos, 113 F.3d at 548.
These cases make clear that, in order to assess and enforce compliance with
Section 2’s protection against discrimination in voting, the Department
needs to be able to obtain citizen voting-age population data for census
blocks, block groups, counties, towns, and other locations where potential
Section 2 violations are alleged or suspected. From 1970 to 2000, the Census
Bureau included a citizenship question on the so-called “long form”
questionnaire that it sent to approximately one in every six households
during each decennial census. See, e.g., U.S. Census Bureau, Summary File
3: 2000 Census of Population & Housing—Appendix B at B-7 (July 2007),
available at https://www.census.gov/prod/cen2000/doc/sf3.pdf (last visited
Nov. 22, 2017); U.S. Census Bureau, Index of Questions, available at
https://www.census.gov/history/www/through_the_decades/index_of_question
s/ (last visited Nov. 22, 2017). For years, the Department used the data
collected in response to that question in assessing compliance with Section 2
and in litigation to enforce Section 2’s protections against racial
discrimination in voting.
In the 2010 Census, however, no census questionnaire included a question
regarding citizenship. Rather, following the 2000 Census, the Census Bureau
discontinued the “long form” questionnaire and replaced it with the
American Community Survey (ACS). The ACS is a sampling survey that is
sent to only around one in every thirty-eight households each year and asks
a variety of questions regarding demographic information, including
citizenship. See U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey
Information Guide at 6, available at
https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/programssurveys/acs/about/ACS Information Guide.pdf (last visited Nov. 22,2017). The
ACS is currently the Census Bureau’s only survey that collects information
regarding citizenship and estimates citizen voting-age population.
The 2010 redistricting cycle was the first cycle in which the ACS estimates
provided the Census Bureau’s only citizen voting-age population data. The
Department and state and local jurisdictions therefore have used those ACS
estimates for this redistricting cycle. The ACS, however, does not yield the
ideal data for such purposes for several reasons:

 

Jurisdictions conducting redistricting, and the Department in enforcing
Section 2, already use the total population data from the census to
determine compliance with the Constitution’s one-person, one-vote
requirement, see Evenwel v. Abbott, 136 S. Ct. 1120 (Apr. 4, 2016). As
a result, using the ACS citizenship estimates means relying on two
different data sets, the scope and level of detail of which vary quite
significantly.



Because the ACS estimates are rolling and aggregated into one-year,
three-year, and five- year estimates, they do not align in time with the
decennial census data. Citizenship data from the decennial census, by
contrast, would align in time with the total and voting-age population
data from the census that jurisdictions already use in redistricting.



The ACS estimates are reported at a ninety percent confidence level,
and the margin of error increases as the sample size—and, thus, the
geographic area—decreases. See U.S. Census Bureau, Glossary:
Confidence interval (American Community Survey), available at
https://www.census.gOv/glossary/#term_ConfidenceintervalAmericanC
ommunitySurvey (last visited November 22, 2017). By contrast,
decennial census data is a full count of the population.



Census data is reported to the census block level, while the smallest
unit reported in the ACS estimates is the census block group. See
American Community Survey Data 3, 5, 10. Accordingly, redistricting
jurisdictions and the Department are required to perform further
estimates and to interject further uncertainty in order to approximate
citizen voting-age population at the level of a census block, which is
the fundamental building block of a redistricting plan. Having all of the
relevant population and citizenship data available in one data set at
the census block level would greatly assist the redistricting process.

For all of these reasons, the Department believes that decennial census
questionnaire data regarding citizenship, if available, would be more
appropriate for use in redistricting and in Section 2 litigation than the ACS
citizenship estimates.
Accordingly, the Department formally requests that the Census Bureau
reinstate into the 2020 Census a question regarding citizenship. We also
request that the Census Bureau release this new data regarding citizenship
at the same time as it releases the other redistricting data, by April 1
following the 2020 Census. At the same time, the Department requests that
the Bureau also maintain the citizenship question on the ACS, since such
question is necessary, inter alia, to yield information for the periodic

 determinations made by the Bureau under Section 203 of the Voting Rights
Act, 52 U.S.C. § 10503.
Please let me know if you have any questions about this letter or wish to
discuss this request I can be reached at (202) 514-3452, or at
Arthur.Gary@usdoj.gov.
Sincerely yours,
Arthur E. Gary
General Counsel
Justice Management Division