U.S. Senator Bill Hagerty (R-TN) introduced a bill this week to ensure only U.S. citizens are factored into the count for congressional districts and the Electoral College map that determines presidential elections.
Hagerty’s Equal Representation Act, according to its text, would “require a citizenship question on the decennial census, require reporting on certain census statistics, and modify apportionment of Representatives to be based on United States citizens instead of all persons.”
Dems are artificially boosting their political power & in turn diluting the power of other Americans’ votes. I’m pleased to introduce legislation that would ensure that only citizens are counted in congressional redistricting & Electoral College votes.(2/2)https://t.co/eyF6lMvD6L
— Senator Bill Hagerty (@SenatorHagerty) January 25, 2024
“The current method of counting illegal immigrants for purposes of representation serves as a perverse incentive for open borders to boost the relative political power of the states and voters that court it,” Hegerty’s office explained in a press release. “Currently, illegal immigrants are counted for congressional district apportionment and, therefore, Electoral College votes.”
Hagerty’s office cited the state of California as an example, where “millions of illegal alien residents result in California taking several more congressional seats and Electoral College votes than the states’ population of citizens would justify.”
“In other words, being a magnet for illegal immigration increases the power of a Californian’s vote relative to an individual in another state with less population boost from illegal immigration. This creates a perverse incentive encouraging illegal immigration and resettlement to increase political power,” Hagerty’s office added.
Hagerty’s bill comes days after a video clip resurfaced of New York U.S. Representative Yvette Clarke (D-NY-09) calling for more illegal immigrants sent to her congressional district because she “needs more people in her district for redistricting purposes.”
“It is unconscionable that illegal immigrants and non-citizens are counted toward congressional district apportionment and our electoral map,” Hagerty said in a statement. “While people continue to flee Democrat-run cities, desperate Democrats are back-filling the mass exodus with illegal immigrants so that they do not lose their seats in Congress or their electoral votes for the presidency, hence artificially boosting their political power and in turn diluting the power of other Americans’ votes. I’m pleased to introduce this legislation that would require a citizenship question on the census and will ensure that only citizens are counted in congressional redistricting.”
Tennessee U.S. Senator Marsha Blackburn, a cosponsor of Hagerty’s bill, added, “Blue states may be losing citizens over their liberal policies, but they’re making up for it by welcoming illegal immigrants.”
“Democrats have admitted the quiet part out loud as they continue to justify their open border policies: they just need a higher head count to help them acquire more seats in Congress and more dollars from the federal government. This is wrong and un-American. Only U.S. citizens should be counted for purposes of congressional and Electoral College apportionment,” Blackburn added.
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Kaitlin Housler is a reporter at The Tennessee Star and The Star News Network. Follow Kaitlin on X / Twitter.
Photo “U.S. Census Worker” by U.S. Census.
The problem being discussed arises from Amendment XIV to the U. S. Constitution, section 2, which reads, in pertinent part: “Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of PERSONS (emphasis supplied) in each State, . . . “
The operative word being PERSONS, not citizens. Thus, illegal aliens are used in the count to determine how many Representatives a State is entitled to in the U. S. House of Representatives and all that this means (i.e., such as the allocation of Federal funds among the various States to name but one example), and the count is not just limited to the number of U. S. citizens in that State.
It is worse than that! The number of Representatives that a State is entitled to in the U. S. House of Representatives ALSO determines how many Electors that State is entitled to in the Electoral College which chooses who our country’s President will be.
This is a ‘scam’ that the Democrats in Blue States have been employing for a long, long time to take unfair advantage over their sister Red States in both the control and enactment of prospective legislation in the U. S. House of Representatives and in the election of a U. S. President. So, yes, this ‘scam’ needs to be stopped and I commend U. S. Senators Hagerty and Blackburn for recognizing the problem and wanting to correct it.
However, there are two BIG problems here. First, mere legislation will NOT change a rule set forth in the language of an existing constitutional amendment or original constitutional provision. ONLY AN AMENDMENT of that existing constitutional amendment or original constitutional provision will effect a change. Secondly, in that the U. S. Senate is presently controlled by the Democrats, and similarly for the U. S. House of Representatives in that this body is almost evenly divided, no proposed amendment of the existing aforesaid provision of Amendment XIV to the U. S. Constitution, section 2, will likely receive the constitutionally required two thirds vote of each House of the Congress to send the measure on to the legislatures of the States of the Union for their ratification of the same proposed amendment. See Article V of the U. S. Constitution.
Accordingly, while Senator Hagerty’s and Blackburn’s proposed legislation expresses a nice sentiment, constitutionally and legally IT ACCOMPLISHES NOTHING (as no doubt they both understand all too well).