If you set out to mow a lawn, you ought to mow the whole lawn and finish the job. If you set out to paint a room, you ought to paint the whole thing, even those hard-to-reach corners. And if you set out to conduct a census of everyone in a country, you ought to count every person in the country. That seems like an obvious truth, and one Americans could embrace in 2020. But the devil, along with the politicians, is in the details.
Texas is one of only five states that has elected not to set up a “complete count committee” — a statewide ad hoc organization working with counties and cities to make sure that every person in the state is counted. In the absence of such a committee, a coalition of 120 counties and nonprofit agencies has created a statewide campaign called Texas Counts to help ensure a fair and accurate count.
There’s a lot at stake here. According to the education advocacy group Educate Texas, failing to count 1% of the people in Texas would cost the state $300 million in federal funding per year for the next 10 years. And there are political stakes as well. Texas could gain three new seats in Congress. Our state has grown more than any other since the last census — 4.5 million new residents, many of them coming from California which, for the first time in its history, is expected to lose a congressional seat because of its shrinking population. But California is investing $154 million to count every head and avoid losing any political clout.
The issue is awareness. Hundreds of thousands of Texans live in areas that are hard to count because of cultural and language barriers. Census workers need the support of ad campaigns, community groups and public awareness to see that residents understand what is happening and respond to the census questionnaire.
And that brings us to the real devilish details: Those places most likely to be undercounted — the hard-to-reach corners of our state — are populated with the poor and minorities, people who will most likely vote for Democratic policies. Their counting could affect redistricting decisions and threaten some politically safe incumbents. We would hate to think that any Texas lawmaker would choose not to pursue what is best for all Texans in favor of choosing what is best for a reelection campaign.
And this has to be said: the census itself isn’t about voting, immigration or citizenship. This is about counting residents — how many people live in our state, use our roads, hospitals, schools and other services. Texas should do all it can to make sure every person is counted. We only do this job once every 10 years. Let’s do the job right.
