(Headline USA) If President Donald Trump succeeds in stopping illegal aliens from being counted in the redrawing of U.S. House districts, California, Florida and Texas would end up with one less congressional seat each than if every resident were counted.
Without that population, California would lose two seats instead of one, Florida would gain one seat instead of two and Texas would gain two seats instead of three, according to the analysis by Pew Research Center.
Additionally, the Pew analysis shows Alabama, Minnesota and Ohio would each keep a congressional seat they most likely would have lost during the process of divvying up congressional seats by state known as apportionment, which takes place after the U.S.
Census Bureau completes its once-a-decade head count of every U.S. resident. The bureau currently is in the middle of the 2020 census.
Federal law requires the Census Bureau to hand over the final head-count numbers used for apportionment to the president at the end of the year, but the bureau is asking Congress for an extension until next April 30 because of disruptions caused by the pandemic.
Besides being used to divvy up congressional seats, the 2020 census results will help determine how many votes in the Electoral College each state gets and the distribution of $1.5 trillion in federal funding.
Trump last Tuesday issued a directive seeking to bar illegal aliens from being included in the headcount as congressional districts are redrawn.
Trump said including illegal aliens in the count “would create perverse incentives and undermine our system of government.”
At least four lawsuits or notices of a legal challenge have been filed seeking to halt the directive. The lawsuits say there is no reliable method for counting people in the U.S. illegally and the order will diminish the accuracy of the census.
The Democratic-led House Committee on Oversight and Reform is asking Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, Census Bureau director Steven Dillingham and other officials to testify about the Republican president’s directive at a hearing next Wednesday.
Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press.
