The Tennessee Conservative
“Equal Representation Act” To Stop Illegal Immigrants From Interfering With Congressional Representation Blocked By Democrats In U.S. Senate
By Adelia Kirchner
Legislation that would have added a question of citizenship to the U.S. census as a way to stop illegal immigrants from being counted for Electoral College apportionment or redistricting has been effectively blocked by Democrats in the U.S. Senate.
The “Equal Representation Act” was carried by Sen. Bill Hagerty (R-TN) in the Senate and Rep. Chuck Edwards (R-NC) in the House of Representatives where the Act passed by a 206-202 vote earlier this month.
Not a single House Democrat voted in favor of the legislation.
On May 16th, the Equal Representation Act was taken up in the Senate with Sen. Hagerty saying the “commonsense bill” required that “only U.S. citizens are counted for the purpose of allotting congressional districts and Electoral College votes.”
“This makes sense,” said Sen. Hagerty, “in order for every American’s vote to have equal weight, only legal voters should be counted in apportioning voting power.”
Senator Brian Schatz (D-HI) objected to the Act, arguing that the U.S. Constitution simply says to count all persons in the census and that it says nothing about leaving noncitizens out of that count.
“This has always been and continues to be, a pretext to scare people, particularly immigrants, out of taking the census, out of being counted at all,” said Sen. Schatz.
Sen. Hagerty responded, noting that his Democrat colleague was objecting to legislation that “would actually restore the one person, one vote principle” and “end the perverse incentive under which illegal immigration increases political power.”
“It’s indisputable that Congress can direct that a citizenship question be included in the census,” stated Sen. Hagerty. “It was included in the census for most of our history up until Barack Obama’s Administration took it out in 2010, and the Constitution says that the census shall be conducted ‘in such manner as Congress shall by law direct.”
“On the question of what population is counted for apportioning House seats and electoral votes,” Sen. Hagerty continued, “the Constitution says that you count the number of persons in the U.S. It doesn’t mean literally everyone in the U.S. We don’t count people here on vacation. We don’t count people here on temporary stays. Why would we count people that are here that broke in illegally?”
Ultimately, Senate Democrats blocked the Equal Representation Act from progressing any further.
Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-MS) took to X afterwards saying, “I joined @SenatorHagerty’s Equal Representation Act to stop counting NONCITIZENS in our elections. Senate Democrats clearly have a problem with that. Wonder why would that be?”