The Hill News

The prospect of an ever-diversifying nation raises the hopes of many for a more inclusive society. For others, these demographic changes arouse feelings of anxiety over a future that looks decidedly different from our past. While Americans may differ on how we should adapt to this new reality, most of us agree that these changes matter â€" and that it’s important to our future as a nation to document and understand them. For hundreds of years, this has been accomplished through the census.

But Congressman Gowdy (R-S.C.) and a cadre of other lawmakers are advocating the wholly unsupported notion that a key aspect of the census â€" the American Community Survey (ACS) â€" is unconstitutional as currently configured. Based on this assertion, they have introduced legislation to make responding to this part of the census voluntary as well as engaged in a parallel effort to achieve the same result through the census funding bill being considered this week.

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