Skip to content
Search

Latest Stories

Top Stories

Census Case Has Long-Term Implications for Representational Government

The Trump administration wants the Supreme Court to make an exception to the regular judicial process and decide this spring whether the next census may include a question about citizenship.

The dispute is central to the way representational democracy will play out across the country for a decade, not just in Congress but also in statehouses and at city halls. And the Justice Department says it needs a resolution before the court recesses in late June, so that census forms can be printed in time for the April 2020 national head count.


Asking a citizenship question would likely lower the response rates in immigrant-rich areas, in turn altering the way as many as half a dozen House seats are apportioned among the states. And, while the Constitution mandates that congressional seats be distributed among the states based on total population, states and localities have considerable leeway to consider citizenship when drawing their maps. Also at stake is the allocation every year of tens of billions of dollars in federal aid doled out on the basis of the population count.

The administration says the question is necessary to enforce the Voting Rights Act. But 18 states and several cities and jurisdictions, along with civil rights groups, sued to prevent it from being asked, alleging in part that the motive is to dissuade undocumented immigrants from answering the questionnaire. And last week a federal trial judge took their side, ruling that Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross broke a "veritable smorgasbord" of rules in overriding career officials who said it would make the census less accurate.

The administration asked the court to review that decision by bypassing the usual intermediate appeals court and holding oral arguments in April or even May.

Ross, meanwhile, has agreed to testify about the census controversy before the House Oversight and Reform Committee on March 14, one of its first high-profile sessions since Democrats took control of the chamber, especially now that President Donald Trump's former lawyer Michael Cohen has called off his appearance.

Read More

Does My Vote Still Matter?
white and red heart sticker
Photo by Dan Dennis on Unsplash

Does My Vote Still Matter?

The Fulcrum is committed to nurturing the next generation of journalists. To learn about the many NextGen initiatives we are leading, click HERE.

We asked Roselyn Gonzalez, a recent graduate of the University of Nebraska–Lincoln and a cohort member with the Fulcrum Fellowship, to share her thoughts on what democracy means to her and her perspective on its current health.

Keep ReadingShow less
Is Bombing Iran Deja Vu All Over Again?

The B-2 "Spirit" Stealth Bomber flys over the 136th Rose Parade Presented By Honda on Jan. 1, 2025, in Pasadena, California. (Jerod Harris/Getty Images/TNS)

Jerod Harris/Getty Images/TNS)

Is Bombing Iran Deja Vu All Over Again?

After a short and successful war with Iraq, President George H.W. Bush claimed in 1991 that “the ghosts of Vietnam have been laid to rest beneath the sands of the Arabian desert.” Bush was referring to what was commonly called the “Vietnam syndrome.” The idea was that the Vietnam War had so scarred the American psyche that we forever lost confidence in American power.

The elder President Bush was partially right. The first Iraq war was certainly popular. And his successor, President Clinton, used American power — in the former Yugoslavia and elsewhere — with the general approval of the media and the public.

Keep ReadingShow less
Conspiratorial Thinking Isn’t Growing–Its Consequences Are
a close up of a typewriter with the word conspiracy on it

Conspiratorial Thinking Isn’t Growing–Its Consequences Are

The Comet Ping Pong Pizzagate shooting, the plot to kidnap Governor Gretchen Whitmer, and a man’s livestreamed beheading of his father last year were all fueled by conspiracy theories. But while the headlines suggest that conspiratorial thinking is on the rise, this is not the case. Research points to no increase in conspiratorial thinking. Still, to a more dangerous reality: the conspiracies taking hold and being amplified by political ideologues are increasingly correlated with violence against particular groups. Fortunately, promising new research points to actions we can take to reduce conspiratorial thinking in communities across the US.

Some journalists claim that this is “a golden age of conspiracy theories,” and the public agrees. As of 2022, 59% of Americans think that people are more likely to believe in conspiracy theories today than 25 years ago, and 73% of Americans think conspiracy theories are “out of control.” Most blame this perceived increase on the role of social media and the internet.

Keep ReadingShow less