Democrats fighting citizenship question will HURT Blacks

Paul Mirengoff)  Powerline blog

Asking about citizenship will help African Americans.

Christian Adams explains why:

Blacks have been losing political power in immigrant-heavy urban cores because non-citizens are not identified by the Census and are counted for redistricting. . . .

Los Angeles provides a particularly stark example. For over a decade, African-American leaders in Los Angeles have been complaining to the Justice Department that blacks have fewer city council seats than they should. Instead, the seats are going to Hispanics because the districts are being drawn to benefit Hispanics instead of blacks.

But how could this happen, you ask? The lines are being drawn that way because the Census does not seek accurate citizenship data in the decennial census, and Los Angeles doesn’t use citizenship population to draw districts of equal citizen population.

Blacks in Los Angeles County are nearly all American citizens. The same is not true for the Los Angeles Hispanic population. Yet the exercise in line-drawing of county council seats treats non-citizens and citizens exactly alike. . . .

Los Angeles isn’t the only example. Blacks compete with Hispanics for local office in Democratic Party primaries in Miami, Houston, Dallas, San Francisco, New York City, and Chicago, to cite just a for more cities. With districting based on population counts rather than citizenship, Hispanics obtain an undeserved advantage.

The census dispute represents another case where, in essence, Democrats are asking Blacks to take one for the Party. Blacks have always been willing to do so. But with the Hispanic population growing so rapidly and with its leaders making so many demands on behalf of relatively new arrivals, it’s reasonable to wonder how much longer their willingness will persist.