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Ep015: Citizenship and Census · 775 Alive

• 0:00
  Scott: So, we're doing a special nighttime run here, testing out some new ring light equipment on 775
• 0:05
  Alive, uh, here from my wonderful backyard in Elko. Crystal: That's Scott's nice way of saying we're talking about the Census, which is not a conversation that I can have sober. So, I needed to wait until after I had a drink so that we could have this conversation. And I need to take my glasses off so you don't have to look at little ring eyes. [Music]
• 0:35
  Crystal: So, the Census, you think it's a big deal. For some reason, it flew completely under my radar, and I think it flies under a lot of people's radar, but you've brought up some good points. It's worthy of a conversation.
• 0:46
  Scott: Yeah. And and as I've said numerous times, I worked the 2020 decennial Census. I came on to the Census Bureau in 2019 as a tribal partnership specialist. So my my job was to negotiate access for Census teams onto the reservations and colonies here in Nevada and sort of work with the communities about what they needed to do to prepare for the Census. Uh and then since we had nobody here on the ground in northeastern Nevada, I picked up a lot of the rural counties. So I ended up covering a--uh for those of you not in the 775, I ended up covering a six-county area that's about the size of Ohio. Crystal: Well, there's a lot of really deep issues that I actually wanted to talk to you about, but unfortunately you just distracted me. Um, so a quick question. Organizing access to tribal lands. That almost sounds like safety issues. Um, is are there problems with the tribal access or is it just the fact that they're a completely different nation and you need to officially is like almost like a diplomatic mission the into the tribal land?
• 1:45
  Scott: Well, that's on partnership. So, so let me let me back up a bit and just point out. So, the Census of course is in the US Constitution, right? Every 10 years.
• 1:51
  Crystal: Ever since the beginning of our country.
• 1:53
  Scott: Well, ever since 1789 in the Constitution then, right? So, first Census was done in 1790. No, no, there, there's a long period from 1778 to 1787 or 1789 that isn't really going well under the Articles of Confederation.
• 2:06
  Crystal: Well, so many of our institutions these days are have such a shallow lifespan. It's nice to see that
• 2:11
  some things go. Scott: Um, yeah. And uh so one of the things to keep in mind at the Census is that it is the largest peacetime mobilization of manpower. So uh the Census Bureau actually over the last couple censuses of . . . censuses have mobilized about half
• 2:30
  a million people right by time they staff up and do this. Crystal: That's wild. Scott: Yeah. I mean it's a it's a
• 2:35
  huge huge undertaking. Crystal: Does they, do they start that process like a year ahead of time? Scott: Oh no
• 2:39
  it's about five years. This is one of the reasons . . . Crystal: Not the Census itself but the hiring just . . . .
• 2:43
  Scott: Yeah the hiring that's like the planning process and everything. This is one of the reasons you're hearing the Trump administration these arguments about the citizenship question on the Census coming back up now. Right now is when they're starting to plan the 2030 Census. And if you remember, there was an effort here. So Trump comes into office in 2017. He wins the 2016 election, is sworn in in 2017. And he wants to add the citizenship question to the Census. It gets turned down by the courts. It's not turned down on sort of legal grounds about the citizenship question. It's turned down because it's way too late in the process to
• 3:19
  go back and try to redo everything and make sure they got the accuracy of the data. Crystal: So, as it sits,
• 3:24
  the Census does not ask whether or not you're a citizen? Scott: The decennial Census doesn't. Crystal: Okay. So, this thing is a way that we count how many people are in our country. And, you know, to someone like me who doesn't do a lot of thinking, you're way in it. You, you've done it even as a part of your career path and but for a lay person you know I don't think any of us really stop and think like how do we know how many people are in the country and it's important to know especially when it comes to tax dollars, things like the education system how many kids are in a county, and and how much you know per per person are we going to allocate and I just haven't given it that much thought like how do you count how many people and this Census is half a million people walking around knocking on the door who live here. Scott: Well, not all not all . . . Crystal: Over simplify. Scott: That's a bit not all of us were walking around. But no, but remember the original purpose of the Census, although we talk about it now in terms of distribution of federal funds because that gets
• 4:20
  an easy buy-in from people. Crystal: Yeah. Scott: Its original purpose was to determine political apportionment for the House of Representatives. That's why it's in the Constitution, right? Um you're getting so many um so many representatives proportion of the Constitution. And it's now up to about one representative--since the 40s, we've capped the representatives of 435. Okay. So,
• 4:40
  it's basically one representative now for about every 740,000 people. Crystal: Well, and that's another place in my brain I've oversimplified this issue. I thought it's just how we ultimately divide up tax dollars. But of course, how would you know? You have to know how many people in your country if you have a representative democracy in order to figure out how many representatives you need.
• 4:57
  It makes sense for . . . . Scott: Well and that gets back to some interesting issues which the
• 5:03
  citizenship question is part of. Um can I do two things real quick? Crystal: So as of right like we
• 5:07
  have never asked on any Census in the last 200 years . . . . Scott: No no no that's not correct. Crystal: Okay. Um, so it's on at some point. No. Well, it wasn't I don't think it's ever been on the decennial Census, but remember the decennial Census, while it's the largest operation the Census Bureau does, they do about 150 surveys regularly and then any type of special stuff that Congress might ask for. The counterpart to the decennial is a survey known as the American Community Survey. And basically what this was, um, some of our older view viewers might, uh, remember when you hated getting the long form Census back in the 70s and 80s, we had all the questions income. Basically, they separated that out in 2006 as the American Community Survey. And every year they sampled 2% of American households. That's 3.5 million homes. That survey does ask a citizenship question. Crystal: Okay.
• 5:58
  Scott: Right. It just hasn't been on the decennial Census. Crystal: And and didn't you say at one point imbecile was a question?
• 6:03
  Scott: Scott: Well, that was that was back in the 19th . . .
• 6:08
  Scott: know, this was a 19th century . . .
• 6:08
  Scott: Crystal: I'm still shocked by . . .
• 6:13
  Scott: century conceptualization of mental health.
• 6:13
  Scott: Crystal: Sure. a lot of this information comes from a book called The Census: A Social History by Marian Anderson, uh, which is a really good text. And I'll be talking a lot about her ideas because, uh, I read it before I got the job at the Census and has really been impressed. Um, in some ways I think it's a better um overview than Dan Bouk just had that recent work a couple years ago called Democracy's Data which really looked at the 1940 Census but this is a broader overview but um yeah that was that was the 1840 Census which is quite controversial on its own right because uh it seemed to show due to a poorly designed census form where there was a lot of mismarking that a lot of people of African descent in northern states got recorded as basic basically imbecilic or not able to work. And what happens, you know, the 1840, we're in the lead-up now to the Civil War. And a lot of the southern slave owners use that census data to argue that slavery was actually better than people of African descent, even though it was based on a poor survey design. Crystal: That hurts. 150 years later, that still hurts. Scott: Oh, it does. It does. But the apportionment issue which is at the basis of the citizenship question uh of course there's that famous clause in article one of the Constitution about representation in the House of Representatives and that says basically the Census should be counted or representation shall be based on a count of all persons except those bound or all persons excluding non-taxed Indians and what they meant by that was Indians who lived in sovereign states um not bound by labor and those bound by labor only count as three fifths of a person for representation. That's . . .
• 7:54
  Scott: Crystal: They did not actually count they say untaxed Indians, what they meant was basically Native American tribes that weren't had had treaties and weren't part of the United States. So they because technically they were sovereign states, which gets back to our question, yes, I do have to negotiate access because Native American tribes are considered sovereign states nowadays. But that's the famous three-fifths cause when when people say oh you know slaves were only considered three-fifths of a person that was done for representational purposes and the reason of that--one could argue cynically that you know for southern slaves owners they counted zero-fifths of a person right by the worst cases. But this was done because the southern states were afraid that the more populous northern states would dominate the legislature and they wanted to count their slaves and the northern states are like no, they're not they're not really citizens we can't count them. So the compromise was the three-fifths, right?
• 8:47
  Scott: Crystal: So if I can fast forward to the here and now, what jumped into my mind when you first suggested a question of citizenship or not to ask on the census? Well, first of all, I had a lot of thoughts all at once, but in terms of the Trump . . .
• 9:06
  Scott: in terms of the Trump administration's prerogative and their hyperfocus on illegal immigration, there is a very strong tether there, I think, because my first thought when he said that, predominantly was in political strategy. What what would he be trying to accomplish with this? And at the end of the day, again, when I'm talking about allocating federal tax dollars, if you are not a citizen, you are not entitled to tax dollars. And essentially, and what we've seen really is a lot of illegal immigration hyperfocused in urban centers because they a lot of urban centers and cities are protecting illegal immigrants. So, they're they're safe places for them to go. They have this big concentration there. They're all going to the school systems. They're all using public infrastructure. Now, if you were to look at say the city of LA and just count the citizens, the amount of money difference LA is going to get if they can't count their non-citizens in the Census is drastically going to reduce those cities budgets, which is where I see the political strategy really is when it comes to like really gut-punching the the blue states. it would be doing something like this because it would drastically drop the amount of federal dollars that are supplementing those cities.
• 10:25
  Scott: But remember . . .
• 10:25
  Scott: Crystal: Just a one slice of it, but that is where my mind went at first.
• 10:30
  Scott: and I would point out I think you're partially right. So, this is a sanctuary uh this sanctu sanctuary city argument that . . .
• 10:35
  Scott: Crystal: That was what I was searching for.
• 10:39
  Scott: they're counting their legals and getting getting more tax dollars, but remember we still use it for apportionment. And the best estimate right now is that potentially we could see a shift between states of up to 26 seats in the House of Representatives based on whether you count non-citizens for representational purposes. And remember the House pass . . .
• 11:04
  Scott: that could shift that could actually wind up with some new gerrymandering going on.
• 11:08
  Scott: certainly the Democrat argument. The argument is what would happen though? Um there's a lot of thinking that really it would be states like California blue states that are already starting to lose population for other reasons that would be hit particularly hard.
• 11:23
  Scott: is out of those 26 states they could potentially represent a 15 to 20 seat pickup for Republicans in in Congress which would dramatically shift . . .
• 11:29
  Scott: Crystal: Yeah.
• 11:34
  Scott: There there's a meme that I'm seeing all over the place on Facebook and everything that says, "Well, if we didn't count non-citizens on the Census, California would lose three three house seats and two electoral votes." That is not how the electoral college works, right? There's no way those numbers make sense. If you lose three house seats, you lose three electoral votes, right? So, I don't know who did that that meme, but re-read the Constitution. Um, that being said,
• 11:59
  Crystal: I think it's like a representative per every what? 750,000.
• 12:05
  Crystal: Someone was doing some kind of political math saying, you know, if you lost 2 million people out of the state, that would be approximately three seats.
• 12:12
  Crystal: That's probably where that came from.
• 12:12
  Crystal: Scott: Well, no. The 740 comes from how they apportion. And I tell you that ironically has been one of the problems with the Census um is that there is no clear-cut way to take the total number of people, the total number of each state and determine a representation formula. That has been a problem from day one. And in fact, this . . .
• 12:31
  Crystal: one of the biggest blowups over that was the 1920 Census. They actually don't reapportion seats after the 1920 Census because Congress can't agree what the formula should be, which is huge because the 1920 Census is the first census where more people are living in urban areas than rural areas. So, we go into the New Deal, the Great Depression, and then the New Deal based on representation in Congress that hasn't been adjusted since 1910, right? And some people have argued that's one of the reasons we're seeing stuff such as uh this huge emphasis on the New Deal over rural based projects, rural electrification, TVA. Certainly not the only reason, but there there's a misallocation there. And this is contentious. I think New York ends up losing one seat, I think, or two. I think maybe one or two seats, they lost in the 2020 reapportionment of Congress. They lost the one seat by 82 people by the time the formula came out. And that's not unusual. These seats are are basically being decided by a couple hundred people. And of course, New York's like, you know, so if we would have worked a little harder because you're never going to count 100% of the people. It's just physically impossible. So if we had found 82 more people, we could have kept that congressional seat. You know, that's the type of bitterness that goes into . . .
• 13:48
  Crystal: interesting because on its face, the question of whether or not whether you're a citizen should be on the Census or not on its face doesn't seem like that contentious of an issue. But I mean the more I learn about it, the more I'm like this is a really critical issue because essentially if you're a citizen, you . . . that's an entitlement program. You know you are entitled to a certain number of things and if you, if you count citizens alongside non-citizens then the entire pool is diluted. So your entitlements are diluted by not asking this question. But I take it a step further and say this thing's a honor system essentially. You can say whatever on these census forms. I mean . . . I don't . . . . Okay, let me ask you this. If they ask you your ethnicity--because you've been trained to do this--and you're clearly white and you say Hispanic, does that person just go along with that?
• 14:42
  Crystal: Scott: Yeah, they they have to. And and let me . . . Crystal: The whole thing could just be mislabeled and and my point is what non-citizen is going to claim they're not a citizen in front of the census person?
• 14:51
  Crystal: Scott: There's a couple factors going here but what I wanted to say is caveat: I no longer work for the Census Bureau, so you know if you have any real questions about this . . .
• 14:59
  Crystal: Crystal: You've been trained. I'm like what is the
• 15:03
  Scott: Historically there has been, there has been an issue where census takers would classify people by looking at them right. So sometimes, you know, Native Americans when they start counting up by the time we get to the 1870s, 1880s, you know, are you a full-blood Indian, you halfblood Indian, and it's really the census taker that's making those decisions or what race people go into. That's bad. So, they've moved to a self-identification model. Um, you are partially right. There's no checking. But one of the funniest things is, and we went through this a lot because one of the problems that's going on is it's one thing to say you're Native American, but the Census has really struggled with being able to capture, you know, how many people of Sioux descent are in the US, how many people are are Western Shoshone, right? How many are Paiute? Um, there's actually a database the Census Bureau uses where people self, the stuff they self-identify as. Yeah. Uh, so you know, looking with Nevada, we can look at and identify, you know, the how Native Americans, but you'd be shocked how many white people put down stuff such as hillbilly, druid. This is all captured in the database because it's how people self-identify themselves.
• 16:11
  Scott: It almost seems like a I don't know how valid I would consider if I was a scientist analyzing this data. I'm like, I don't . . .this . . . there's no way to tell if this data is valid.
• 16:20
  Scott: really. And in 2020, I mean, my census got dropped off at my door. I filled it out and I forgot what happened or if I sent it back or something, but I never face to face with the census person. I just, you know.
• 16:31
  Scott: Scott: Yeah. And that's what you, so what and that's what the Census Bureau wants because it's cheaper, right?
• 16:35
  Scott: Crystal: Right.
• 16:38
  Scott: part of my job on the partnership team, um, especially the as a tribal partnership specialist, we had to negotiate stuff, but the, you know, the broader partnership project is really geared about going out and talking to communities to encourage people to self-respond. Because you get better data.
• 16:53
  Scott: Crystal: Yeah.
• 16:57
  Scott: of children if people self-respond. Because if you, if a census taker, an enumerator, shows
• 17:01
  up at 5: 30 at night, somebody's home, you know, they're trying to get the kids fed, they just want the person out of there. Forgot about the newborn sleeping in the back bedroom.
• 17:09
  Crystal: Yeah.
• 17:09
  Crystal: Scott: Right. Um, ironically, children under five are the largest undercounted group in the Census, which is exactly the group that needs it. But anyway, um . . .
• 17:14
  Crystal: Crystal: I have a constitutional question.
• 17:23
  Crystal: So, I still get email updates from the state of Washington about business, small business laws and rule updates. And occasionally I'll read them. If nothing else for a little bit of comic relief because everything that comes out of that state is so draconian in 1984ish. It's crazy. And so, occasionally I'll read them to be like see what kind of nonsense they're up to. And this one, this last one kind of floored me. And so they . . .
• 17:47
  Crystal: Washington state just passed the regulations that when you are hiring someone in the state of Washington, it's no longer legal for you to ask if they are legal citizens or not. Further, it is illegal to ask for documentation.
• 18:05
  Crystal: puts them in in violation of federal law.
• 18:05
  Crystal: Crystal: Okay. So, okay. Besides how outrageous that is because as a business you have to choose between following federal law or state law. And if nothing else, you can you can hone in on the I-9, which is something I have to fill out for every employer, which requires me to ask their immigration status, right? Federally required to ask this. The state federally prohibits you from asking it. I wonder how Washington state's going to treat a census document that asks whether or not you're a citizen.
• 18:38
  Crystal: I was going to make a joke that my employees . . .
• 18:38
  Crystal: Crystal: Please do. [laughter] I-9 issues. and the joke being I'm a single person business. [laughter] But, uh, that being said, yeah, that I mean that's that's just a de facto violation, but so is letting immigrants stay. I mean technically uh immigration is one of those issues that's clearly in the Constitution as an enumerated power of the federal government.
• 19:00
  Crystal: Crystal: Right. But um could you see someone like the state of Washington rejecting the Census altogether because of that question? Scott: Well, you know, there are Native American tribes that reject it.
• 19:12
  Crystal: Crystal: Okay.
• 19:18
  Crystal: rejecting the Census.
• 19:18
  Crystal: Scott: The problem is there's . . . they the Census, they can't do anything.
• 19:24
  Crystal: Crystal: Well, it would, it would legally it would force the Census to fall upon the the previous census numbers and just extrapolate.
• 19:33
  Crystal: it?
• 19:33
  Crystal: Crystal: Well, because that's the nearest statistic any data for that year, what else are you going to pull from to allocate funds?
• 19:41
  Crystal: things. Even though Washington and California or what not refuse to support the Census, you're going to have people that self-report, it's probably going to be a much smaller number than if they're out there encouraging it.
• 19:50
  Crystal: Crystal: And how accurate would that be because it's not a random sampling at that point.
• 19:54
  Crystal: Scott: Right. Well, that's a whole other issue. I don't think they'd ever do it because it's too important both for, um both for . . .
• 20:05
  Crystal: any state that that refused to do it, they could challenge the numbers.
• 20:10
  Crystal: were successful in rejecting the Census, then they could actually save themselves from this population drain, because I really do think they'd have to fall upon the previous census report.
• 20:18
  Crystal: because Congress . . . I mean that's a federal thing. So Congress . . .
• 20:22
  Crystal: no data.
• 20:22
  Crystal: Scott: But you do have the data.
• 20:26
  Crystal: extrapolate from like the American Community Survey if it was . . .
• 20:30
  Crystal: but my guess is you'd have enough where they just say, "Well, California, you you know, you had 3 million less people respond, so you're losing four or five House seats." Um, and that's and there's nothing California can do about that. They could take it up into court, but it is a Constitution requirement. It's controlled by the federal government. So, the states can't really say no. They get into the Supremacy Clause. Crystal: So, to get this question on the Census for 2030, they have to get it done by the end of this year? Scott: Well . . .
• 20:58
  Crystal: have to be . . . if I remember right, the decennial questions do have to be approved by Congress and the OMB and everything. There's a multi-stage process. But the biggest problem is again, this is a huge mobilization. You're talking about printing 330 million . . . you're talking about printing probably 200 million forms.
• 21:11
  Crystal: Crystal: So, it have to get through Congress this year. Scott: No. Well, no, no, not necessarily.
• 21:16
  Crystal: Crystal: On the 2030?
• 21:20
  Crystal: is . . .
• 21:20
  Crystal: Crystal: They got 330 million forms.
• 21:25
  Crystal: computerized backends for the self. That's what the problem was. It's a logistical issue that the Trump administration ran it into. You can't just decide, okay, we're a year out from the Census. We're going to reprint all these forms that we ordered 3 years ago. I mean, it's just an insane um . . . And by the way, there's another internet rumor that Trump is somehow going to order another census with a citizenship question so they can redistrict states between 2026. I can tell you that is not going to happen. There is just no amount of time. But can we go back to to the real legal argument about the citizenship question. Despite your concerns about who's going to answer and the bigger concern is not the people are going to lie. It's that non-citizens just aren't going to be reported at all. And then we have another sort of data lacuna, a data hole um the the Constitutional language does say all persons. It doesn't say all citizens. It says all persons. Okay. Now, why that is considering when this goes into effect, nobody is talking about federal funding for individual citizens. And in fact, by the time we get to the . . .
• 22:25
  Crystal: Founders use that word on purpose? Persons?
• 22:25
  Crystal: Scott: Yes. And here's why. Well, let me rephrase that. Marian Anderson thinks they use it on purpose. And here's why. The problem that the US is facing in the late 1780s is the fear that they're going to be invaded by Britain or France or Spain or another colonial power. And what they one of the reasons they need the Census um is actually to get an assessment of manpower availability to defend the country. And one of the ways that they had defended the country under the revolution in the Continental Army was by promising men who signed up to fight for the United States, promising them land in exchange for military service, and by having land they became citizens.
• 23:02
  Crystal: Crystal: Okay.
• 23:08
  Crystal: all persons not citizens, not citizens because what they really needed was an assessment of manpower availability in case they were invaded. Now what's interesting about that is the legal challenges that the Trump administration is going to face about adding the citizenship question is that the 14th Amendment which is put into place to guarantee . . . 13th Amendment abolishes slavery. 14th Amendment guarantees that those African-Americans would be former freed slaves would be recognized Enfranchised.
• 23:34
  Crystal: Scott: Enfranchised. And it repeats that census in the 14th Amendment. So in some ways it is similar to the birthright citizenship. Can an administrative decision overrule the explicit language in the 14th Amendment of the Constitution? And that's going to be the the interesting legal battle that's being fought. Well . . .
• 24:02
  Crystal: Scott: Right.
• 24:07
  Crystal: one I told you my predominant thought. But then my next thought was you know how could other agencies abuse this information like you know your first thought is like could ICE use these lists and then you explained to me that it's not like that, it's aggregate data and they have blocks of information and but I'm like there are people that extract information from the Census. Oh, otherwise why the heck did we do all of it? And like who are these people getting it and how will they use it ultimately is is kind of the issue. But just asking whether or not you're a citizenship, whether or not you're a citizen does not really put anyone in jeopardy or in danger. And I think, you know, there's I can't really see a legal argument as to why you wouldn't just ask that question. I mean, it doesn't really implicate anything. It's aggregate data.
• 24:55
  Crystal: part of it is the concern that non-citizens just won't answer it.
• 24:55
  Crystal: Crystal: Yeah.
• 25:00
  Crystal: you just don't count them at all. And again, if they're going to your schools or whatnot, that's a problem.
• 25:04
  Crystal: Crystal: That's like is that question
• 25:07
  Scott: But the real problem is, again, there is a historical experience to this.
• 25:07
  Scott: Crystal: Yeah.
• 25:11
  Scott: experience. Well, first of all, everybody when we start talking about this, people are like, 'I can go to Ancestry.com and look up my ancestors' Census records.' Yes, you can. Right.
• 25:22
  Scott: Yeah, the census data is held private for 72 years. Okay. So, if you have an ancestor that's recorded on the Census from 1950 or earlier, you can look them up. You can't look up anybody from 1960 or later.
• 25:34
  Scott: Crystal: That's fantastic.
• 25:39
  Scott: one of the primary purposes of census data for the individual level is exactly for the naturalization process. People will go do stuff like, you know, request a census bureau, like, you know, I need to show I'm here 5 years and it's 2024.
• 25:50
  Scott: Crystal: Yeah. a census bureau recording you at this particular location in 2020, which guarantees you were here five at least four years ago, right?
• 26:00
  Scott: Crystal: Yeah. Because you're not able to actually directly tie this to a person, I think it's a perfectly fine question to ask.
• 26:10
  Scott: a historical precedent here, and that historical precedent is that census data from the 1940 Census was actually used by the government um in part to identify Japanese-Americans during the internment process in World War I, or World War II.
• 26:22
  Scott: Crystal: That's what I was saying when you're like aggregate data. I was like, as long as it's aggregate and you can't tie specific forms to specific people, it's all good. It doesn't matter what question you ask, but the minute you have an ability as a government to get into that data and start actually picking individuals out, that's where it's a problem. Right. And that's why Title 13 of the US code gets passed in the early 1950s.
• 26:45
  Scott: I'm like grilling you. I'm like, how, who gets access to the Census?
• 26:50
  Scott: me explain what we mean by aggregate data, right? So what happens is an agency say the Department of Education, if it continues, or some other agency can get a report from the Census Bureau that says okay in Anytown USA between Main Street and North Street and between 1st and 10th Street um there's there's 200 households with an average number of people of five people per household and you know uh about 2,000 people within that area that are children under 18 that might be you know that's how you base your school planning on. What the Census Bureau will not give out to some place like the Department of Education or another government agency is that okay the house at 123 Fifth Street um has 10 people who are all illegal.
• 27:29
  Scott: Crystal: Yeah. um this aggregate data.
• 27:34
  Scott: Crystal: And to me when you made government going in and say there's a Japanese person at 123 Main Street.
• 27:44
  Scott: they did.
• 27:44
  Scott: Crystal: What happened?
• 27:45
  Scott: That's exactly what happened. And that's why Title 13 was passed, which is the one that sets the 72-year requirement and so on and so forth. Um, but the the concern is can that Title 13 be overruled by the US Congress? Theoretically, it can, right? There's also you know on top of everything else there's real fears that this might do something if you get census data even in the aggregate that this Census Tract which is the basic sort of mapping components if this Census Tract is 60% non-citizens does that sort of mark them out for ICE raids yeah
• 28:19
  Crystal: Yeah, but you know this right here and now the reason why we're talking about it is because it's in the news because it is something the administration is exploring and trying to put forward. So you really have to ask yourself what's this about here here in the now specifically. To me this is about again it's it's a little bit of a scare tactic because a lot of illegal immigrants are are very afraid of especially government people knocking on the door and asking you about your citizenship. Um, and you know, I just want to make sure it's done legally and constitutionally because at the end of the day, like I said in the beginning, uh, as an enfranchised citizenship, I'm entitled to so many entitlements. And that entitlement pool gets diluted by people that are non-citizens. And if we can start to differentiate and we can start to figure out a way to just be sending federal money to people in LA that are actually citizens, then LA will have to rethink some of its policies and how it's acting because it'll have to deal . . . it'll have to pick up more of the tab if it wants to be a sanctuary city. And it should hurt a little, right? It really should cost them something. And if there's a chance that, you know, this is another way of tackling that illegal immigration problem, I'm all for it. I just want to make sure be for g*****n certain that it's constitutional and lawful. Other than that, let's do it.
• 29:41
  Crystal: Japanese guy at 123 Main Street from census data, that gives me pause.
• 29:52
  Crystal: have to apply it the same every time. Otherwise, it's no good.
• 29:57
  Crystal: this is a problem. A, I think it is legal because again it's on the American Community Survey, right? That the sampling they do every year of 2% of American households. The citizens qu citizenship question is part of that. Any question that appears on the census has to go through sort of a set of processes to get past the Office of Management and Budget, the OMB, right? And, and part of it is there's got to be a question, Can you quantify it? This is one of the issues, you know, There's there's been a lot of complaints where we need to have a multi-gender option. And one of the things that's that's really screwing up that argument is what does that question look like? Yeah. I mean, what what data are you actually collecting here and how are you categorizing it? Um, but the same question gets back to, you know . . . Crystal:I'd be fine with other, male, female, other Beyond other, I'm like . . .
• 30:46
  Crystal: Scott: Well, and that's and that's what what what does that mean? I mean, what are you what are you choosing for other?
• 30:55
  Crystal: identify as cisnormative, male or female.
• 30:55
  Crystal: Scott: Okay, but let's look at how census data is used.
• 31:00
  Crystal: I don't feel like the Facebook thing where it's 55 different categories to choose from. Forget it. But you know, others fine because it validates the other, but it doesn't make a big deal out.
• 31:09
  Crystal: gets into a question for something you brought up earlier about the ethnicity and race issue, which is really unique. Now, other countries do censuses, and in fact, Britain and France both do them in 5-year intervals. I'm not too sure about other countries. So they in a weird way have a much more . . .
• 31:21
  Crystal: Crystal: Yeah race and ethnicity are like sex and gender. Like it's almost like sex is the legal term and gender is more of like whatever you make it the subjective term like race is a legal thing and ethnicity isn't.
• 31:32
  Crystal: Scott: Well, but that's not that . . . that problem is it's even more blurred than sex and gender. I mean it used to be sex was just biological.
• 31:43
  Crystal: and we're already asking all these questions about ethnicity. And I think they the one change they are making is they're adding . . . Arab?
• 31:47
  Crystal: Scoot: Yeah. Well, there's a Middle Eastern and Southwest Asian category.
• 31:52
  Crystal: Crystal: So, that's definitely getting and it's already been approved for so you're start you're going to start seeing more forms when they ask if you're white, African, Asian, Native American.
• 32:06
  Crystal: ask those questions?
• 32:06
  Crystal: Scott: Well, that's what . . . that's one of the problems because this is something that's a uniquely American phenomenon. Now, one could argue that America has a unique racial history, and there is some truth to that.
• 32:14
  Crystal: Crystal: Because all my arguments arguments apply to the ethnicities, too. I'm like, why are we asking these questions?
• 32:22
  Crystal: gets it gets into a lot of of weird, um weird sort of questions, particularly well, I mean, I did an article about this. So, you have the Hispanic and Latino. So you have this weird question that um you know Antonio Banderas would be considered to be a minority ethnic because he's Hispanic by Census definition even though he's from Spain. Very white, very upper class. Sergio Mendes, the Brazilian jazz artist, Bosanova artist, would not be Hispanic by the census data because he doesn't speak Spanish. He's in Brazil and speaks Portuguese. Now he would technically be Latino. what are we measuring with this? Why I mean what are we measuring with with all this data? And that's that's a question that's going to have to be tackled as well. But it also . . .
• 33:08
  Crystal: bothers me when people say white people because I mean particularly people like me that are you know particularly one ethnicity mostly Irish. It's like I don't see myself like other white people. Like Irish people are very different and I would say Italians would say the same and Germans would say the same and French would say the like we're nothing like each other. like dare tell a French person they're just like an English person. I mean that's not going to go well. Like we're all so different, you know? And so I'm like why do we ask these questions, right? And and you know there's a question why is that white either? Yeah. And Irish that . . .
• 33:41
  Crystal: mean this is an interesting question about because one of the things has to go through is not only do you how do you categorize the question, but there's also the question of does a government agency that's requesting this have a legal justification to know this, right? So, you know, you're never going to see on a Census question something like, you know, what's your bank account numbers? Who do you bank with? Because there's no legal justification for the government knowing that on a census form, right? Um but you know going back to the sex versus gender thing um you know there there might be a justification for the government knowing for instance um in terms of of sex you know what are we looking at 10, 15, 20 years down the road in terms of uh prostate situations or breast cancer situation breast cancer is male but you know cervical cancer right and and that is biologically determined and you could see that there's a government argument for perhaps knowing that information, that a gender question with 73 different identities isn't going to answer.
• 34:38
  Crystal: Crystal: I was going to say you could just but wait a minute. HIPPA is a pretty tight little thing to crack. So, yes, you're right. Government would have to pull health statistics other ways.
• 34:46
  Crystal: Scott: Right. Well, and it gets into, it gets into how all this is used. We were joking earlier, one of the questions that again older people probably remember was the the long form Census. It used to be about one in six households during a decennial Census got what was known as the long form, right? Where you had like all these questions about your income and the one nobody everybody hated and couldn't figure out why the government . . .
• 35:08
  Crystal: jury duty you just like randomly got to draw and you're like you got the long form.
• 35:12
  Crystal: form. That's why they separated that but one of the questions for years on it was how many bathrooms
• 35:16
  has your household had and people this . . . this was the joke: Why does the government need to know how many bathrooms? Well this actually comes out of the 30s and 40s when municipal or regional water systems are being developed for like Tennessee Valley Authority and the problem is trying to determine water usage in an area um that crosses is various jurisdictional boundaries. So by putting the question on the Census, you can know that an average bathroom uses so many gallons of water per day and you could get an estimate of a region of what the water use. Yeah, it's sort of an indirect way to get at some really interesting planning data. The question I think we're having is a lot of this racial categorization that has been added to the Census form particularly since the 60s, I think there's a feeling it it might no longer be needed. It might not be telling us the issues we need to we need to know about.
• 36:05
  has your household had and people this . . . this was the joke: mean and then to even consider gender on top of it. It's already too much in my opinion legally. I'm like and again this is just uh whatever they say, right? So I just the veracity of the data just it still kind of makes me . . . I don't know what we're getting from it. But I suppose on such a big massive level 300, 330 million that you're probably going to get something out of that. But I mean, everybody's into gender politics and identity politics and everyone wants to claim they're some rare ethnicity and blah blah blah. And like, how how would we even know how people are actually answering these things? Do people like resent them so much that they just mark what they're not supposed to?
• 36:44
  has your household had and people this . . . this was the joke: Scott: Some do. Some do. I to say about working in rural areas, which are, shall we say, known for their distrust of the federal government. You know, you initially there's a lot of push back, people you know local governments that I'm working with like we don't want to have anything to do with the Census, too political, it's too political and this will go on for months and and then you know we're, we're a month out from the Census and I go give an update at a county commission meeting, like well it is in the Constitution I guess we had to encourage people to do it right it it's just you know some of it some of it's posturing. But it is an interesting dimension in the fact that um the self-identification issue is not the best solution to this problem, but it's the best one we have without getting into having somebody go, "Okay, you know, you claim you're African-American and Native American and Asian. I don't see it. I'm just going to mark you down as African-American," which is how this used to be done. And that's sort of the problematic.
• 37:43
  has your household had and people this . . . this was the joke: interesting is with a AI um it's computational power. We, you know, there's so many ways to measure population and there's really no exact way to do it. It's so funny. We've been talking about this for hours. I'm like trying to figure out how do you count people? And every way I came up with it, I'm like, "Oh, but then yeah, there's no exact way to do it. But I bet AI could put enough pieces together to get a more accurate representation than what a Census Bureau would.
• 38:09
  has your household had and people this . . . this was the joke: could search Facebook, it could look at profiles, it could, you know, cross reference all these things and then like, you know, I I mean, I think it could probably get down to the actual numbers.
• 38:20
  Scott: I utterly disagree. I just . . . Well, I mean part of the . . .
• 38:20
  Scott: Crystal: I'm convinced AI is taking over. I find a way to sneak it into every conversation.
• 38:25
  Scott: Scott: No, I mean this has been discussed is that for instance, some of the push back against Census um is why can't we just pull this data off the Social Security database? Well, DOGE showed how inaccurate that might actually be. Um but there's also, you know, the question, why can't the IRS just report this stuff? Why can't . . .
• 38:46
  Scott: you know, if I were to take a deep dive on this, I would look at how do other countries count their population?
• 38:49
  Scott: Scott: Well, it's an interesting . . . it's a very interesting field and there's a whole field of study for it.
• 38:53
  Scott: Crystal: Probably much easier in China because, I mean . . .
• 39:00
  Scott: has less idea of how many people they have, because they have a lot . . .
• 39:00
  Scott: Crystal: They have a lot of city people but the rurals don't . . .
• 39:04
  Scott: Scott: Turkey ran into this is one . . .
• 39:10
  Scott: This is one of the stories that the the Census Bureau statisticians like to tell when we were doing our training. Turkey was a great example because Turkey got all on into doing a census. I don't know when this was, but they declared they were going to have um you know, make it a national holiday. So, they're going to have Turkish Census Day. They were supposed to stay home and wait for the enumerators to come. Well, it's a holiday. Everybody took off to the lake. So, they didn't they didn't actually get a good count, right? So, this is this is the type of weird stuff that goes in sometimes um when you're doing this stuff. It it's a very tough issue.
• 39:42
  Scott: especially I mean coastlines might be really easy, but as soon as you get inward, you probably they probably have no idea who how many people live on the interior.
• 39:51
  Scott: little better just because Australia's population is so small. It's what barely 30 million. I mean, it's it's a small, small country. Yeah. Right.
• 39:57
  Scott: Crystal: And then of course I was like DMV records. Like there's all all these ways. I'm thinking this is how you count people. And it's like actually no that the DMV doesn't catch everybody either. And like residency, states have residents and they they file I mean they get utilities and stuff like that and I'm like how much of the stuff requires documentation and names and where can you make up enough pieces to go get an ID card and . . .
• 40:19
  Scott: Scott: Right. And, and this is I mean it's incredibly complicated.
• 40:25
  Scott: Crystal: It really is.
• 40:30
  Scott: not new. I mean this has been one of . . . So the idea of counting populations really is a Renaissance era idea. Like so much in the Renaissance the Italian city states start playing with this in the you know early 16th century. Most European countries start trying to introduce censuses Britain tries to do one in the 1750s and the population just refuses to be counted--that's where the Americans pick up the idea now but 19th century they do it.
• 40:54
  Scott: um illegal, well I don't it's not all illegal immigration but they have a massive amount of Muslim population and African too. I believe they they they take the boats across that.
• 41:06
  Scott: there's there's a lot of, there's a lot of taking the boats across.
• 41:10
  Scott: that cross through . . .
• 41:10
  Scott: Scott: And they have well, they have . . . Italy has a lot of problems.
• 41:14
  Scott: hard time counting how many people are theirs and how many are just passing through traffickers and It's pushing a lot of it's really pushing a lot of what in my view what's a growing huge ethnic problem in Europe. Yeah. that I fear is going to become very, very violent before long. Um but I think um you know it's it's a very tough question uh to answer and it gets back to why are we counting people to begin with.
• 41:38
  Scott: Crystal: Yeah.
• 41:43
  Scott: but you know one of the biggest victims of this is going to be school funding. And is it right to take you know funds away from a five or six year old who was brought here illegally and make them suffer. Right. Um, so it's it's some tough issues.
• 41:55
  Scott: Crystal: And I'm . . . why can't you take data from IRS filings? Well, and again, IRS filings isn't going to cover everything. Um, there are some people not required to do IRS filings, right?
• 42:08
  Scott: Crystal: I think if you're below a certain threshold of income, it's like 19, 20, 20,000, 24,000, you don't have to file, right?
• 42:19
  Crystal: So it's a different threshold for retirement. Scott: And you know this gets into a whole range uh a whole range of issues um that and how many people don't file IRS returns.
• 42:31
  Crystal: of course all citizens have a Social Security Number.
• 42:39
  Scott: That's utterly incorrect.
• 42:39
  Scott: Crystal: What? Yeah. How can you be Because it used to be up until . . . it was really only the 1990s before most states would automatically start issuing transferring the birth certificates to the federal government to get a Social Security Number. There's a lot of people who don't have Social Security Numbers because you know if you were born in the 40s, 50s, 60s in rural areas a lot of times you just . . . I mean when my daughter was born in 1990 we there was a separate form to get her a Social Security card. It wasn't done automatically through the state. the parents had to fill out the form. And particularly when you get in the tribal communities, for instance, who are American citizens since 1924, sometimes they don't report this data to the government for social security numbers because they're not really tied into the system the same way.
• 43:23
  Scott: Crystal: Can a Native American apply they can. And technically they're supposed to sign up for Selective Service, but again . . . .
• 43:30
  Crystal: It seems more automatic than that.
• 43:30
  Crystal: Scott: Well, it's . . . it's probably is now. Anybody . . .
• 43:36
  Crystal: future? Couldn't that be a source of Census? Like . . .
• 43:36
  Crystal: Scott: It could potentially . . .
• 43:40
  Crystal: citizens in this country.
• 43:40
  Crystal: Scott: Well, but you also you . . . but it's not just calculate the difference that sCcensus is we want to count the right number of people in the right place. That's the other side of the coin. And that's one . . .
• 43:57
  Crystal: my house. They're all visiting from Michigan. Scott: Right. Well, no, but a good example, two good examples of this is colleges. Should college towns be able to count their dorm populations towards our citizenship? And the same thing with prisons. A lot of states, including Nevada, require the Census to record prisoners that might be in like the state pen there in Lovelock in their last known district back home. And part of this comes out of debates like in New York . . .
• 44:22
  Crystal: they have to fill out their census information as if they were still living back home. Well, that makes sense.
• 44:27
  Crystal: Scott: Well, it it it does, except you know what if you're serving a life sentence and that last address, you haven't been there for 25, 30 years. Doesn't make any sense to do that.
• 44:37
  Crystal: that does not.
• 44:37
  Crystal: Scott: But this is this is a problem that came out of New York because . . .
• 44:41
  Crystal: complex this is? I didn't realize I it was it's a bit of a can of worms. Once you open it up, I was like, why are we talking about Census? Once you like, holy crap, this is a big issue.
• 44:51
  Crystal: and it's really hard to know and and one of the things um you know, I brought up and and you know, tying this back in because this is a podcast about the 775 in rural Nevada. One of the problems we deal with is that um so we have a decennial Census but it's once every 10 years. So how do you track change in between that? Well, that's what the American Community Survey is supposed to do with the Census Bureau. If you have a population less than 100,000, it doesn't consider the 2% sample size to be accurate. So any area less than 100,000 people, which is rural Nevada communities, they use what's known as a 5-year Estimate. So it'll take five years worth of census data and sort of run back through this model based on the last decennial Census to determine where your population is.
• 45:32
  Crystal: Crystal: Yeah.
• 45:38
  Crystal: Which means if you go back 5 years, rural Nevada still has population data from 2019 pre-Covid included in that. And it's not the deaths, but as you know, we've had a huge influx after 2020 of people moving in particularly from California into rural Nevada. That's not being captured . . .
• 45:58
  Crystal: this sort of census data. And this is one of the things that causes these big surprises when you get to the decennial all of a sudden, you know, all Elko County, which people at the Census Bureau says, well, it's only 57,000. It could quite be that we're well over 60,000 by the time we get to 2030. Yeah.
• 46:13
  Crystal: Scott: Because the sampling model is wrong.
• 46:18
  Crystal: Census.
• 46:18
  Crystal: Scott: Right.
• 46:22
  Crystal: their debt. Oh my gosh.
• 46:22
  Crystal: Scott: Right. And not to mention they're going to lose a lot of that political representation. And what does that mean for them? Crystal: That means I got five years to convince my brother to sell his home in California.
• 46:31
  Crystal: Scott: That's between you and your brother.
• 46:34
  Crystal: because after that the market's going to tank. So, anyways . . .
• 46:40
  Crystal: question or not? That is the question. Let us know your opinion. Go ahead and shoot us an email at info@775alive.com. Until then, I'm Scott Gavorsky. And I'm Crystal Newton. See you around the 775.
• 47:04
  Crystal: [Music][Music]