Equal Representation Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. BIGGS. Mr. Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 1194, I call up the bill (H.R. 7109) to require a citizenship question on the decennial census, to require reporting on certain census statistics, and to modify apportionment of Representatives to be based on United States citizens instead of all persons, and ask for its immediate consideration.

The Clerk read the title of the bill.

Mr. Speaker, H.R. 7109 has three components.

Number one, it requires the Census Bureau to include a citizenship question on the decennial census questionnaire.

Number two, the bill directs that this information be used to ensure fair representation by requiring only citizens be included in the apportionment base.

Number three, it has a severability clause.

Currently, the Census Bureau estimates the noncitizen population using data collected annually in the American Community Survey. We are going to call that ACS as I go, just to help you out. That data is not necessarily accurate.

Further, there are no reports that asking a citizenship question on the ACS every year suppresses illegal, alien, or other noncitizen participation on the ACS questionnaire.

The constitutionally iterated rationale for a decennial census is to apportion electoral districts for Congress.

In Commerce v. New York, the Supreme Court noted that a host of various questions over the years that are tangential to apportionment had been included in the decennial censuses, ``race, sex, age, health, education, occupation, housing, and military service,'' and ``radio ownership, age at first marriage, and native tongue,'' et cetera.

The citizenship question is no stranger to the Census questionnaire. Commerce also noted: ``Every Census between 1820 and 2000 (with the exception of 1840) asked at least some of the population about their citizenship or place of birth. Between 1820 and 1950, the question was asked of all households. Between 1960 and 2000, it was asked of about one-fourth to one-sixth of the population.'' That is another quote from the Commerce case.

This isn't a uniquely American practice. Even the United Nations recommends collecting citizenship information via a census, as noted by, again, the Commerce Court. Australia, Canada, France, Indonesia, Ireland, Germany, Mexico, Spain, and the United Kingdom ask about citizenship in their respective censuses.

Is the United States to be the only North American country not to inquire about citizenship in its Census protocols?

The Commerce Court held, regarding the positing of a citizenship question on the Census, as follows: ``In light of the early understanding of and long practice under the Enumeration Clause, we conclude that it permits Congress, and by extension the Secretary [of Commerce], to inquire about citizenship on the Census questionnaire.''

Section 2 of H.R. 7109 simply asks whether a person is a citizen of the United States, yes or no. That is it, but everyone gets counted.

As my friend knows, the Commerce case held specifically you can ask the citizenship question on the Census. That is true. You can do that. That is what we are proposing.

Additionally, he misstated the rationale on why the Commerce case went the way it did. They said you can ask the question, but that the Secretary had contrived his rationale and was in violation of the APA, and that is why that happened.
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Mr. BIGGS. Mr. Speaker, of course, every single Democrat voted against the great border security bill, H.R. 2. That is how serious they are not. Every person is counted under this bill. Why can't we ask them what their citizenship is?

I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Higgins).
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Mr. BIGGS. Mr. Speaker, may I inquire as to the time remaining.

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Mr. BIGGS. Mr. Speaker, I wish we were hearing not deflective statements but the actual truth here.

Here is the way it works. There is nothing in this bill that says you don't count everybody. You do count everybody. The thing they really don't want us to know is how many illegal aliens are in the country, so we are going to ask a citizenship question, which has been asked in 22 of 25 Censuses. They don't want that.

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Mr. BIGGS. Boebert).
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Mr. BIGGS. Mr. Speaker, may I inquire about the time remaining.

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Mr. BIGGS. Mr. Speaker, I am prepared to close, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, it is an honor to debate here about this. Let me tell you something, Mr. Speaker, I believe that, by far, most Americans would agree with the proposition that those illegally in the United States and noncitizens should not be counted for purposes of creating or modifying congressional legislative districts. That is probably what they think, and that is exactly what section 3 of this bill leads to.

Foreign nationals here legally who have not naturalized and cannot vote in Federal elections, together with illegal aliens who cannot vote in Federal elections, comprise a substantial portion of our population, by some accounts in excess of 15 percent of our populations.

Noncitizens are not evenly distributed among the States, and some States end up with greater representation in Congress based on a higher concentration of noncitizens. Perhaps that is what one New York Congresswoman meant when, in response to a question regarding illegal aliens, she said: ``I need more people in my district just for redistricting purposes.''

The provision of this bill would ensure a fair apportionment based on equal representation of citizens.

Now, my colleague has relied on Evenwel v. Abbott, a case that they relied on wrongfully. Their reliance is totally misplaced.

First of all, they are dealing with State apportionment issues in Evenwel, not Federal, but State. Let's go ahead, and let's see what Justice Ginsburg did. She cited with approval the district court holding in Evenwel that the Supreme Court allows jurisdictions to use any neutral, nondiscriminatory baseline, including total population, when drawing State and local legislative districts.

That has never been overturned, nor did Justice Ginsburg overturn it in Evenwel. In Evenwel, the plaintiffs that came before the Court wanted apportionment based on the citizen voting age population. That is what they were asking for.

Although Evenwel deals with State and local apportionment, we can fairly extrapolate that rationale to Federal apportionment, as well. Justice Ginsburg's holding in Evenwel turns on the idea that voter equality in a district is not required. It is not required. However, she also lays out that neither is it the total population metric that is implied by my colleagues on the other side of the aisle. That is not required either.

For instance, Justice Ginsburg referred to Burns v. Richardson. In that case, it held that districts may be apportioned on the basis of registered voters or voter-eligible populations, that that is permissible.

In the Burns case, they give the example of Hawaii, which could rationally justify its use of voter-eligible apportionment because of the large number of transients and military personnel it had. The Burns court noted that apportioning using registered voters was permissible because of the conditions in which Hawaii found itself.

Now, what has happened since then? What has happened since then is this administration will admit that 9.2 million illegal aliens have come in under their control. They will also admit that there is another 1.8 million known got-aways. That is 11 million people that the administration will admit to have come in, in 3\1/2\ years. It has distorted the population. It skewed the one-person, one-vote standard, which is the canon upon which the commerce case was founded. It is the one-person, one-vote rule.

Our colleagues on the other side don't want to acknowledge that there is a constitutional basis, as I have just cited, to allow section 3 to go forward, but Democrats are perfectly content with California, which is a sanctuary State, hauling in people. The minority is perfectly content with New York bringing in people through sanctuary policies, or Illinois. That skews exactly what the Founders intended to make straight and clear.

Let's go to the 14th Amendment for just one second to actually read the second part of the 14th Amendment, or get to that. I am not going to read it. The first clause, that is what my colleague across the aisle, Mr. Speaker, has relied on exclusively, but he didn't bother to tell you about the second clause.

In the second clause itself, it deals with every Federal election and every State election for State Governor, judicial body, and State legislatures. What they do there in the second clause of the 14th Amendment is provide a way to reduce apportionment when those individuals may be disqualified.

Mr. Speaker, that is what we are saying here. That is why this bill needs to pass, and I urge a passage.

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