II. ADVENT

Today's meditation is also about censuses.   Caesar wanted to enroll all his subjects.  His local lackey Herod sought to eliminate all the two-year-old boys so as to eliminate the rival who came to his attention.  Many centuries later, the United States enumerated enslaved persons differently from free citizens, in order that slave-holders had constraints on their ability to buy proxies, and today Our President would like to enumerate citizens differently from illegal aliens, in order that sanctuary cities do not get to import proxies.  It's enough to get the editorial board of Chicago's Sun-Times worked up.  "Keep politics out of the U.S. Census," they urge.

Trump’s goal appears to be securing an undercount in states with large numbers of immigrants at least in part because the census data is used to reapportion the 435 U.S. House seats every 10 years. Census numbers also are used to ensure state and local legislative districts have equal numbers of people.

A big enough undercount could reduce the number of congressional seats in some states and increase it in others. According to a Pew Research Center analysis, California, Florida and Texas would each lose a seat.

But the data also is used to steer hundreds of billions of dollars in annual government annual spending. A miscount would steer spending on Medicaid, special education grants, school lunches, Head Start and other programs away from where it is needed. Illinois, which was already considered likely to lose a congressional seat even without an undercount, would likely get fewer federal dollars than it deserves.

Can an action taken in the service of a political end, whether it be enumerating for taxes, or enumerating for apportionment, be anything other than political?