Washington joins lawsuit against Trump over census citizenship question

Washington is joining a multistate effort to sue the Trump administration over a new question on the 2020 U.S. census.

“I won’t allow the Trump administration to play politics with the census at the expense of all Washingtonians,” Washington State Attorney General Bob Ferguson said Tuesday.

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The AG’s office announced Tuesday that it opposes a decision by the Trump administration to place a question about citizenship on the 2020 census.

Under Ferguson, the AG’s office has sued Trump and the federal government more than 20 times.

“The Census Bureau’s own research reveals asking people about their citizenship status could significantly undermine its Constitutional mandate: an accurate count of everyone in the United States, regardless of immigration status,” Ferguson said. “If Washington state’s large immigrant population isn’t accurately counted, the impact on our Congressional representation and billions of dollars in federal funds our state receives could be jeopardized.”

The multistate coalition comes one month after Ferguson signed a letter to the Secretary of Commerce urging that the question be dropped from the census. The multistate lawsuit will argue that the citizenship question is invalid on constitutional and statutory grounds. The AG’s office notes that the U.S. census has not asked about citizenship status since 1950.

Washington State Governor Jay Inslee also said that the Trump administration is underfunding the 2020 census and attempting to suppress participation. Inslee said that “it’s clear this administration is trying to sabotage a critical tool for making informed policy decisions and ensuring fair representation.”

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