A group of Republican senators led by Sen. Bill Hagerty (R-TN) introduced a bill on Thursday that would ensure that illegal immigrants are not included in the population count for the Electoral College or congressional districts.
The bill, titled the “Equal Representation Act,” would require the Census Bureau to ask a citizenship question so that Electoral College votes would only be apportioned based on U.S. citizens living in the state. Former President Donald Trump attempted to have the question added to the 2020 census but was blocked after he faced a bevy of lawsuits from Left-leaning groups.
“It is unconscionable that illegal immigrants and non-citizens are counted toward congressional district apportionment and our electoral map. 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,” Hagerty said.
According to a draft of the legislation, the bill would require a citizenship question to be asked during the decennial census, and it would ensure that representatives would be designated based on the number of citizens living in a state and not the total population.
“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 headcount to help them acquire more seats in Congress and more dollars from the federal government. This is wrong and un-American,” Sen. Marsha Blackburn, a co-sponsor of the bill, said.
In 2019, the Supreme Court blocked Trump’s efforts to add a citizenship question to the census in a 5-4 decision after groups claimed that the question was discriminatory.
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Other co-sponsors of the bill included Sens. Mike Braun (R-IN), Katie Britt (R-AL), Ted Budd (R-NC), Bill Cassidy (R-LA), Kevin Cramer (R-ND), Mike Crapo (R-ID), Steve Daines (R-MT), Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-MS), James Lankford (R-OK.), Mike Lee (R-UT), Cynthia Lummis (R-WY), Roger Marshall (R-KS), Pete Ricketts (R-NB), Jim Risch (R-ID), Mike Rounds (R-SD), Eric Schmitt (R-MO), John Thune (R-SD), Tommy Tuberville (R-AL), and J.D. Vance (R-OH).
The legislation comes as a record number of illegal immigrants have crossed the southern border under President Joe Biden.