[EL] Section 2 and the Census

[Franita Tolson]

When Congress first tried to enforce Section 2 in 1872, they collected data on the number of people whose right to vote was abridged or denied in an attempt to enforce the penalty.  Congress was unsuccessful in imposing the penalty for a number of reasons beyond the scope of this discussion.  Nonetheless, one could argue that Section 2 requires only that Congress collect data on those disenfranchised under state law, since the affected individuals who meet the criteria outlined in the provision would be subtracted from population used as the basis for determining the allocation of representatives.  I don’t think that this requires the census to have a citizenship question because Congress does not need to know the total number of citizens within the jurisdiction to impose the penalty.

Sent from my iPhone

On Apr 25, 2019, at 9:41 AM, Josh Blackman <joshblackman at gmail.com<mailto:joshblackman at gmail.com>> wrote:

I welcome any thoughts on this question

https://reason.com/2019/04/25/is-the-government-required-to-count-the-number-of-citizens-in-each-state/
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