Recently, I ran into a friend whom I worked with when I was a project manager. He’s the best landscape architect I know, and he knows it. His company prices work accordingly. Bids were unapologetically 20 to 30% higher than others, which required explaining to my clients—who often chose his work anyhow. After all, an amazing hardscape & landscape job beautifully sets apart a $10 million dollar home from the neighbours.
Two summers back, when I was between jobs, I worked a month for his company, aerating lawns and de-winterizing homes around Vail. It was an in-their-shoes experience, putting on my old Carharts and steel-toed boots. I was sore every day, lost weight, and remembered why I used to love working outside. My W2 which wouldn’t have covered a car payment today reminded me why I don’t. They were delighted to have me. Why? Because I was a body, and nearly the entire crew was waiting on H2B visas to come through that year. He was short 50 employees for most of that summer. Well trained, prior employees. I saw him this past week and asked about his company?
“We have far more work than we can possibly do,” he said, “but our H2B labour problem is worse than before.” I shared an innovative seasonal job share concept between major winter and summer seasonal employers that is being discussed in Grand County. It involved a conversation between major seasonal employers about sharing the employees year-round and providing housing and benefits. He shared all the approaches he had tried over the years; recruiting personally in Arizona, hiring various companies, etc. What was killing his business? Government red tape.
He and I did not talk about the border wall, America First, free trade, or how America is trending towards nationalism, intolerance, exclusion and isolationism—and becoming a less friendly place for his labour pool by the day. He and I have talked politics before. We would certainly have politely disagreed on those topics.
I also did not think to bring up the 2020 Census and whether adding a citizenship question at a time when there is such outward hostility to immigrants and minorities was a good idea given his perpetual labour challenges. The Commerce Department just decided to do just that this past week.
If middle American voters distrust the federal government, imagine having reason to fear it knocking on your door or every time it walks by in uniform? You surely have a reason for fear as a legal immigrant or minority today, let alone as an undocumented worker who anchors our national economy and whose anonymous efforts enrich business owners making products and services affordable.
Why does the citizenship question matter? Why does accuracy of data matter? Governing on-line on March 28th published “A Census Citizenship Question Wouldn’t Just Impact Blue States” focusing on the impact to local governments. The article states, “non-U.S. citizens account for more than one-fifth of the population in 22 cities with at least 100,000 residents. Most of these jurisdictions are in California, Florida and Texas… this suggests that undercounts could yield drastic effects if some opt not to participate.” It continues, “people assume the effects will be on cities…but there will be a substantial impact on the rural communities as well,” not to mention agricultural and resort economies.
The decision is clearly a political one by the Commerce Department, throwing red meat. It reflects how deeply politics is infecting our institutions today. The Census is Constitutional, even Biblical. It should be off-limits to politics.
The consequences are not just about money. Accuracy was important to the Founding Fathers. It was enshrined in the U.S. Constitution as the framework for establishing Representation in Congress as well as state legislatures, county commissions, city councils and school board seats which are shaped by an accurate count of what the Constitution states as “the whole number of free persons.” A Census video explains how the count is about representation. This should be as close to sacred and non-political as it gets—even though the outcomes clearly have political consequences.
Bloomberg Politics projects that an outcome of (an accurate) 2020 Census will be that “states in the South and West will gain representatives in the US House… at the expense of states in the Northeast and Midwest, as the U.S. population continues its decades-long shift…” That shift is happening whether we want to put the blindfold on or not, just like gun violence, globalization, the diversification of our population and climate change. That same study estimates that Colorado, among other Western states, will gain a representative based on the actual shift in population. Does having one more voice in Congress matter to Coloradans whether it is D or R? A representative is a voice, is power.
More than $800 billion dollars in federal resources are allocated to states, local governments and individuals based on Census counts, including highway construction and other grants. “Department of Health and Human Services found that “37 states lost a median of $1,091 in fiscal 2015 for each person missed in the 2010 Census,” notes Governing. Twenty-Seven percent of Colorado State general fund in 2015 was made up of federal dollars. This is big potatoes.
Accurate counts matter to businesses. “To sell products and services, companies large and small need good information on the location of potential customers and how much money they might have to spend. The Census provides the highest-quality and most consistent information on such items” reports The New York Times in “Here’s Why an Accurate Census Count is So Important.” At NWCCOG we utilize Census data for economic development purposes on a daily basis. The Times continues, “it would undermine the integrity of a wide variety of economic data and other statistics that businesses, researchers and policymakers depend on to make decisions, including the numbers that underpin the forecasts for Social Security beneficiaries.”
Using the 2020 Census for political gain, though it might “energize the base,” is damaging to the democracy, and part of a very disturbing trend. This administration was elected to shake things up, for sure. That can be done without damaging the institutions by blocking research, science and data that is inconvenient to political objectives, breaking norms that have stabilized this country for many years. Whether it is removing climate data from the EPA website, not tracking or actively not-collecting data on gun ownership or gun violence, for example, smacks of the kind of approach prevalent in totalitarian regimes which have also re-written history when it is uncomfortable, tried to muzzle the free press, intimidate the judiciary, threaten to jail opponents, and change the rules of the game when in power.
Regardless of the numbers, or facts, of course, politicians still have the freedom of their opinions and the power of persuasion. Many decisions are made contrary to the data, the research or the science. That is as perennial as the grass. But not even having data, research or science, or altering it for political gain–or pretending that millions of people who are living breathing, fueling our economy, and impacting resources…pretending that those people don’t exist is one major step away from the accountability upon which our democracy relies.
Leave the Census alone.
