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The 2020 census is being ‘sabotaged,’ says leading U.S. statistician

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Re: The 2020 census is being ‘sabotaged,’ says leading U.S. statistician

#91

Post by woo49 »

ccaleb wrote: post #85

This is only tangentially related, but I think it provides important context to this discussion about the motives of those involved. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/30/us/census-citizenship-que...

Both sides have ulterior motives.

Counting illegal immigrants in the census helps Democrats because liberal states have more of them. This is just a fact. You may think we should still count as many of them in the census, that's fine. But don't pretend there is no issue with one side of the argument.

Mentioning motives of one side but not the other is naive. It also prevents us from having a real conversation about the trade offs at hand.

Re: The 2020 census is being ‘sabotaged,’ says leading U.S. statistician

#92

Post by maxerickson »

Aunche wrote: post #68
rubyist5eva wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Republican party had no reason to hold confirmation hearings for Merrick Garland - the votes did not exist to confirm him. The role of the Senate is to provide advice and consent - there was no consent so there was no reason to do it. This year is different - Republicans hold the majority of the Senate and the White House. This nominee has the votes.

In that case, the Senate can always just refuse to confirm a new justice whenever the majority isn't the same party as the president.

That is the case. I don't think it is obvious that this sort of naked use of power is always going to be the best strategy for a political group though. Only time will tell, but it appears to me that the coalition of voters the GOP has long relied on is starting to fracture.

Re: The 2020 census is being ‘sabotaged,’ says leading U.S. statistician

#93

Post by TheAdamAndChe »

kevinmchugh wrote: post #43
TheAdamAndChe wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

think in general about a government that wants to target, arrest, and deport certain groups of people Yes. They are deporting people who didn't come into the country legally. Its important to have an accurate count of citizens in the country since that's who votes. There is an upcoming Supreme Court case that will determine if non citizens should be counted for House representation. You may not agree with it, but it…

The constitution never said to count the people who vote. If you wanted to know that, just count how many people vote.

The constitution also doesn't preclude counting who is able to vote. The constitution places limits on the government, but we can add things that act within those bounds. Asking about citizenship falls within those bounds.

Re: The 2020 census is being ‘sabotaged,’ says leading U.S. statistician

#94

Post by colejohnson66 »

pjc50 wrote: post #81
VLM wrote: post #42

I realize for political reasons we have to only support one side via extreme sophistry, essentially the whole topic is a giant dog whistle test to make sure our community is politically pure. However its VERY hard to ignore the reality that essentially 100% of the US population has no difficulty, on average, kinda paying electric bills and property tax bills and phone bills. Part of the sophistry is pretending that n…

Not paying your electricity or cable bill may result in denial of service. Not responding to the census has no obvious consequences.

Technically, it’s a federal crime to refuse to respond. It’s just that no one has been prosecuted for not doing it in decades.

Re: The 2020 census is being ‘sabotaged,’ says leading U.S. statistician

#95

Post by rubyist5eva »

plushpuffin wrote: post #82
rubyist5eva wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Republican party had no reason to hold confirmation hearings for Merrick Garland - the votes did not exist to confirm him. The role of the Senate is to provide advice and consent - there was no consent so there was no reason to do it. This year is different - Republicans hold the majority of the Senate and the White House. This nominee has the votes.

The Senate has traditionally accepted the president's nominee assuming s/he was qualified. Garland had previously been out forward by the GOP as an example of a qualified and respected judge. And let's not forget that had Clinton won, the GOP was determined to keep that seat on the court empty for 4 years. They said as much. And when they refused to even consider Garland they also said that their newly made-up rule w…

Don't act like "your side" wouldn't do the exact same if the parties were reversed.

Re: The 2020 census is being ‘sabotaged,’ says leading U.S. statistician

#96

Post by Retric »

TheAdamAndChe wrote: post #10
Retric wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Poor people move around vastly more frequently and often end up temporarily sharing living spaces.

Sounds like it's not discrimination against race then, but of economic status. The disenfranchisement of poor people.

It’s easy to discriminate if you allow proxy’s. Just find something that hurts them more than it hurts you and repeat.

Race is already being used as a proxy for political affiliation. Using a proxy for Race as a proxy for political affiliation is less efficient, but still effective.

Re: The 2020 census is being ‘sabotaged,’ says leading U.S. statistician

#97

Post by TheJoeMan »

CyberRabbi wrote: post #11

From what I can tell, a second (third?) census extension is being denied. It’s not that the census is unusually being cut short. I got a different impression from this article.

Exactly! They’re trying to phrase it as “cut it short” when in reality it’s “not drag it out forever”.

Re: The 2020 census is being ‘sabotaged,’ says leading U.S. statistician

#98

Post by eganist »

woo49 wrote: post #91
ccaleb wrote: post #85

This is only tangentially related, but I think it provides important context to this discussion about the motives of those involved. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/30/us/census-citizenship-que...

Both sides have ulterior motives. Counting illegal immigrants in the census helps Democrats because liberal states have more of them. This is just a fact. You may think we should still count as many of them in the census, that's fine. But don't pretend there is no issue with one side of the argument. Mentioning motives of one side but not the other is naive. It also prevents us from having a real conversation about t…

Counting all people who live in the United States of America as well as the distribution of people is the mandate of the Census. The status of said people is irrelevant - taxes are still paid, infrastructure decisions must still be made, etc., so whether any one side benefits more than the other by sticking to the letter of the mandate is irrelevant.

When deviating from the mandate, it's important to consider motives. When aligning with the mandate, unless it's clear that the mandate is ill-formed (which it isn't in this case for the reasons I've given above), motives for enforcing the mandate are, as said above, irrelevant.

Re: The 2020 census is being ‘sabotaged,’ says leading U.S. statistician

#99

Post by croissants »

VLM wrote: post #42

I realize for political reasons we have to only support one side via extreme sophistry, essentially the whole topic is a giant dog whistle test to make sure our community is politically pure. However its VERY hard to ignore the reality that essentially 100% of the US population has no difficulty, on average, kinda paying electric bills and property tax bills and phone bills. Part of the sophistry is pretending that n…

> However its VERY hard to ignore the reality that essentially 100% of the US population has no difficulty, on average, kinda paying electric bills and property tax bills and phone bills.

"essentially 100%" is an overstatement. Federal Reserve data (see e.g. Figure 12 here [1]) consistently shows that quite a few Americans have difficulty paying bills. For example, ~25% of surveyed Americans with a high school degree or less said they couldn't pay that month's bills. That number gets smaller with more education but is always 50-100% larger for black and Hispanic people.

It seems reasonable to me that people juggling various overdue bills might not prioritize responding to a census that has 0 short-term positive impact. It also seems reasonable to me that we make an extra effort to count these people since the point of the census is to count everybody, not just people who are easy to count.

[1] https://www.federalreserve.gov/publications/2019-economic-we...

Re: The 2020 census is being ‘sabotaged,’ says leading U.S. statistician

#100

Post by ComputerGuru »

woo49 wrote: post #91
ccaleb wrote: post #85

This is only tangentially related, but I think it provides important context to this discussion about the motives of those involved. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/30/us/census-citizenship-que...

Both sides have ulterior motives. Counting illegal immigrants in the census helps Democrats because liberal states have more of them. This is just a fact. You may think we should still count as many of them in the census, that's fine. But don't pretend there is no issue with one side of the argument. Mentioning motives of one side but not the other is naive. It also prevents us from having a real conversation about t…

But that’s the whole point of the census. I agree Democrats wouldn’t care if it weren’t politically beneficial, but in this case their interest and the law coincide. Everyone, legal resident or not, should be counted. There’s zero legal /constitutional question about it. If you’re going to get angry every time someone does the right thing for the wrong reasons, I am afraid you’re in for a lifetime of disappointment.

Now if Democrats were trying to increase census coverage in Florida, Texas, NY, and IL while playing games to get census takers to skip traversing the vast emptiness of Montana and Wyoming, I’d agree that you have a point. But that’s not the case.

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