Last Month I wrote about Trump’s plan to end birthright citizenship was overuled by the Supreme Court and explained that if he didn’t like part of the Constitution that didn’t mean he could ignore it.

It appears he’s at it again, this time with the 2030 Census. Every 10 years since 1790 we’ve counted the number of people who live here on April 1st of that year. Article 1, Section 2, Clause 3 of the Constitution mandates that we count everyone. It states that “those bound to Service for a Term of Years” (slaves) be counted as 3/5 of a person and “Indians not taxed” (Native Americans living on reservations) not be counted. Both of those conditions no longer apply as slavery was banned by the 13th Amendment and Indians were made full citizens in 1924. In other words the Census counts everyone who is here.

This matters because this is how we determine the composition of the House of Representatives and the Electoral College.

Please note that at no time have we counted only voters. At the time of the Constitution only about 6% of people who lived here could vote. You can read an interesting timeline here about how that changed over the years. Even today citizens under 18 can’t vote but are counted.

But now the administration is proposing a change that would exclude non-citizens who don’t have a green card. A Green Card is a document issued by the government that allows a non-citizen to live and work in the United States.

However we feel about people who live and work (and pay taxes) here without proper documentation, we have never failed to count them. Trump also wants to exclude people who are here for a limited time (e.g. college students) though he gives no guidance on how it’s determined if they plan to stay. Again, and I’m wearying of saying this, if Trump wants to change the Constitution he needs to do it legally. Amending the Constitution isn’t easy, and it shouldn’t be, but it has been done 27 times.

I’m open to ideas on how we can dumb this down so Trump can understand it.