Redo the Census!

CNAV sends this open letter to President Donald J. Trump, in light of a wave of migration that happened after the decennial Census began. CNAV urges the President not to use results from the present Census for apportionment of representation in Congress. Waves of ex-migration from at least four States raise the possibility that population proportions have changed, after the Census. Therefore, CNAV respectfully urges the President, by Executive Order, to re-enumerate the people. And to do this before apprising the Clerk of the House of Representatives of a new set of representational proportions.

Requirements of the Census

The Constitution of the United States required the first Census

within three Years after the first Meeting of the Congress of the United States, and within every subsequent Term of ten Years,…

Which means:

• No later than three years after Congress first meets, and
• No further apart than ever ten years afterward.

It does not mean exactly three years after Congress first meets, and exactly every ten years after that. Nor does it necessarily mean “in a year ending in the digit zero.” If the Framers of the Constitution intended such a rigid interval, they would have so specified. Which they did not.

Your humble editor has direct experience in this matter. He served on Non-Response Follow-Up and Coverage Improvement Follow-Up crews for the 2000 Census, working in Mercer County, New Jersey. Crew leaders and supervisors alike clearly said the Census could take place every five years.

How often must (or may) the government take the Census?

Furthermore, the Constitution vests in Congress the authority to direct the manner of the Census. But it does not reserve to Congress the sole authority for determining the frequency of the Census. So long as Censuses take place no further apart than ten years, the President can call a new Census whenever he deems necessary. The Bureau of the Census is an executive branch agency, not an agency of Congress.

Nor does the Constitution entitle a State to keep its seats in the House of Representatives if it loses residents. See US Dept. of Commerce v. Montana, 503 US 442 (1992).

States losing residents in 2020

Mr. President, anyone having eyes to see, knows several States are losing residents as your humble correspondent types this. They include without limitation:

• California
• New York
• Oregon
• Minnesota
• Michigan

Witnesses tell CNAV and/or its agents why they are relocating:

• Taxation,
• High-handed, and inconsistent, application of emergency powers for the ostensible purpose of containing SARS-CoV-2, and
• Refusal of State and local authorities to enforce laws against:
  • Trespass,
  • Malicious destruction (“vandalism”),
  • Burglary,
  • Robbery,
  • Assault and battery, and even:
  • Murder.

Why, these witnesses ask, should they stay resident in a city or State, and pay taxes there, when State governors and mayors refuse to enforce the law? And even declare that the protection of a lawful resident from depredation by others is a privilege of white-ness, or some such thing?

What does one expect?

CNAV predicted the sort of responses that would result from lack of effort to enforce the law:

1. The Antifa and BLM revolutionaries will take over the cities in question. They then will start invading homes, killing their occupants, and announcing, “The Committee for Revolutionary Justice has expropriated this house and its contents in the name of the people!” (Pasternak B, Doctor Zhivago, paraphrase.) Or:
2. An armed militia will invade each city and fight an all-out battle, at the cost of heavy casualties on both sides.

Behold, Mr. President. Local citizens are forming militias, which are functioning as vigilance committees. A vigilance committee is a group of citizens who take summary action against those who flout the law, when normal lawful processes have failed or given the appearance of such failure. Which is what they see happening, and to which they now respond.

Vigilance committees

The authorities that ought never have allow things to come to the pass of requiring a vigilance committee, now are prosecuting some of the vigilantes for their acts. Witness Kyle Rittenhouse, age 17, who took summary action in Kenosha, Wisconsin. Two people lie dead, and Mr. Rittenhouse faces first-degree murder charges. Those same authorities lose sight of his having acted to defend:

1. A local property and business, to wit, a used-car lot, and then
2. Himself.

And it would appear that the same people who called for disbanding the police, now want to condemn this young man without a trial.

Deadhead caravans

For reasons similar to the above—both the violence and the attitudes toward those who perpetrate it and try to defend themselves from it—people are simply moving out. So many, in fact, that moving agents and truck renters are having to charge a premium for their services. This article explains why: “deadheading” has become orders-of-magnitude more common for moves from the States CNAV named above. Which can mean only one thing: those States are losing residents. And losing them in record numbers.

How does this affect the Census?

The above question has a simple answer. We now see many people moving out of one State and into another, after they have already answered the Census. People whom the Census counted in one State no longer live in that State. By tradition, the Census Bureau has ignored that phenomenon. But the riots and consequent moves began in the middle of this summer. Most people answer the Census before then.

The consequence reminds CNAV of the Rotten Borough phenomenon that attended the Industrial Revolution in the United Kingdom. Mighty industrial centers like Manchester had zero representation in Parliament. And towns and villages that still did have representation, had few or even no residents. The Parliament Act of 1831 was Parliament’s necessary redress of this monumental injustice.

The Executive Order precedent for the Census

Mr. President, you yourself set the precedent for Executive Orders regarding apportionment of Representatives after a Census. CNAV refers here to your EO that the Census Bureau count only citizens and lawful residents for apportionment purposes.

Note the title of your accompanying memorandum: “Ensuring American citizens receive proper representation in Congress.” In that spirit, Mr. President, you must re-enumerate the people after allowing a reasonable time for refugees from, for lack of a better term, “banana States,” to complete their moves. In view of the Parliament Act of 1831, and this recent EO, such a re-enumeration is entirely within your authority. It also has perfectly justifiable cause. For without it, several States who have chased many of their citizens away, will deprive them of representation for five more Congressional elections. This ought not, must not, continue.