Analysis and Commentary
Politicians out here love to mention their West Texas values. They tell you all the time about how they were raised and what values were instilled in them. Our Rep. August Pfluger invokes them all the time. He did so several times at his recent town hall.
That feels to me like a businessman telling me how he runs his company on Christian values. Why is he telling me that? What does he mean?
Does he give all of his profits to the poor? Probably not. Best keep your wallet close.
Some Count More Than Others
Last week our Congressman, Rep. August Pfluger (TX-11), reminded us that one of those West Texas values he was raised on and holds dear is this: some people count while others don’t.
Thursday, Pfluger released a statement bragging about filing a bill to make sure “illegal aliens” will not be included as a part of the Census. Under his bill these “aliens” will not be counted as part of the population of a state for determining how many members of the House of Representatives that state is entitled to,
To quote Rep. Pfluger, “The political power of American citizens is weakened when millions of illegal aliens count alongside those with a legal right to vote in our elections for the purposes of Congressional representation.”
He wants to stop Democrats from “weaponizing our census” by flooding Democratic controlled states with illegal aliens so they can gain more seats in Congress.
Of course, there is no evidence that such a thing is happening. Texas has the second largest population of non-citizens in the country and has the largest Republican delegation in Congress. Soon it will have five more. Does he want us to give back those seats?
The Count Act
The bill is the “Citizen Only Updated National Tally Act,” or COUNT Act for short.
The bill is an effort to codify and expand former Executive Order 13880 signed during Trump’s first administration.
The administration attempted to add a citizenship question to the 2020 Census, which the Supreme Court denied.
In response, Trump ordered that all departments provide assistance to the Census Department in determining the number of citizens and non-citizens in the country.
President Biden revoked this order in 2021.
According to a statement issued by the Republican Study Committee, which Pfluger chairs, this bill will:
- Create a block-level citizenship database directing all relevant federal and state entities to provide the Census Bureau the information necessary to determine the number of actual citizens living in each state.
- Create an inter-agency taskforce to lead the data collection effort.
- Require a citizenship question for future censuses.
- End the use of differential privacy, ensuring that “bureaucrats at the Census Burea can no longer manipulate and skew data in order to alter the population of a given area or conceal the number of illegal immigrants with in a particular state.
Who Is a Person?
The U.S. Constitution requires that all “free persons” be counted as part of the Census every ten years. Representation in the House of Representatives is then apportioned based on each state’s population. This reapportionment is done every ten years because the House of Representatives does not represent the states. The House and its members represent the people.
Every person in the United States, regardless of where they were born, are “free persons.” If enacted this law would be unconstitutional.
Even if there were no constitutional impediment, has Mr. Pfluger considered the repercussions?
By enacting this bill the United States Government would be making a legal determination that “illegal aliens” are not persons under our Constitution.
As we have seen demonstrated, under the current regime “illegal alien” can include a person who enters the country without legal authorization as well as one how enters lawfully but overstays a visa. It can include the parent of a child who was born in the United States, or the spouse of a citizen, even Dreamers and asylum seekers. It includes citizens. your friends, neighbors and coworkers.
Ante-Bellum Values
This is not the first time the United States Government has decided who is and who is not a person. The Dred Scott decision and the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 are two prominent examples.
In Dred Scott the Supreme Court held that persons of African descent had “no rights which the white man was bound to respect.” In other words, they were not persons under the Constitution. The Fugitive Slave Act then sought to enforce the right to property in human beings nationwide.
It took four years of bloody Civil War to overrule that decision.
Since the passage of the Fourteenth Amendment, the United States Government and its courts have never held that any human being is not a person under the Constitution.
Even in the 1850s African slaves were counted as three-fifths of a person. Indians were counted if they paid taxes.
But under this bill “illegal aliens” will not be persons at all. We have already been told that if you are not a person, you “have no rights which the white man is bound to respect.”
The dangerous implications of deciding by legislation who is and who is not a person for the Census goes far beyond the Census and Congress. What bothers me more than the bad policy this bill would create, are what it will do to us. Declaring certain people are not persons is deeply reminiscent of slavery, Jim Crow, and the Nazi regime they inspired.
What will be the next law passed that denies someone personhood?
Whose Values?
Which is where those West Texas values come into play. This bill must reflect our West Texas values. After all Rep. Pfluger shares our values. He tells us so, time and again.
I don’t know which is worse: that these are his values, or that San Angelo is where he learned them.
