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With a jab at Trump, Connecticut kicks off 2020 Census count

Hartford Mayor Luke Bronin criticized the Trump administration's decision to add a citizenship question to the 2020 Census form.
Stephen Singer/The Hartford Courant
Hartford Mayor Luke Bronin criticized the Trump administration’s decision to add a citizenship question to the 2020 Census form.
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Connecticut launched a campaign Tuesday to count the state’s 3.6 million residents in the 2020 Census, kicking off the project with a partisan jab at President Donald Trump.

The census, required by the U.S. Constitution, has been conducted every 10 years since 1790. It’s used to distribute money and apportion power by setting the amount of federal grants and other financial support to the states and establishing the number of seats among the states in the U.S. House of Representatives that also determine electoral votes required to elect the president.

Hartford Mayor Luke Bronin, speaking to a group of community leaders, statisticians and others at a presentation in Hartford, criticized a decision by Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross to add a citizenship question to the census form.

Ross said it will help enforce the Voting Rights Act. States and groups suing to block the question say it will intimidate some from participating and result in an inaccurate census.

“Many of us, myself included, believe that including that citizenship question was the wrong thing to do, that it was unnecessary, that it was put in there in service of a political agenda that has no place in the census,” said Bronin, a Democrat.

“That being said, if we are unable to change it, we need to make sure that it does not serve as a way to scare people from being counted,” he said. “I personally believe that that was included partly as a scare tactic. We cannot let it succeed.”

He urged community and state leaders to “spread the word about why it matters that our communities get counted, why it matters that every family gets counted.”

Lt. Gov-elect Susan Bysiewicz said she and Gov.-elect Ned Lamont and Attorney General-elect William Tong — all Democrats — “will fight to make sure that no one is deterred from making their filing with the Census Bureau and there is public trust.”

“We don’t want people to feel afraid,” she said.

Connecticut Attorney General George Jepsen announced in April he’s joining a multi-state lawsuit seeking to block citizenship questions from being included in the 2020 Census.

State officials said including citizenship information would reduce census participation in states with large immigrant populations, threatening representation in Congress and the Electoral College and billions of dollars from Washington.

Jeff Behler, census regional director, said representation in Congress and the amount of federal money is based on the number of people counted, regardless of citizenship status.

In 2002, Connecticut lost a seat in the U.S. House, and one electoral vote as a result, following the census in 2000. Its population in 2000 was 3.4 million and is now estimated by the census at nearly 3.6 million, an increase of about 6 percent.

In contrast, in the same 18 years, the U.S. population has jumped more than 16 percent, estimated by the census at 329.2 million.

“Sadly, Connecticut is not growing as fast as other states,” Bysiewicz said. “So that’s why an accurate count is even more critical for us.”

Census data also are used to steer federal money. For Connecticut, that amounted to nearly $8 billion in 2015 for Medicaid, food stamps, highway planning and numerous other programs, according to research by George Washington University and cited by state officials.

“That’s a tremendous resource for us here, for people who rely on resources the most,” said Tyler Kleykamp, the state’s chief data officer.

In addition, census data are used by businesses to plan factory and headquarters sites, a critical need “because we need good paying jobs in our state,” Bysiewicz said.

Census representatives are meeting with state and local officials, community leaders and others to drum up interest in the count and ensure it reaches everyone. Officials must figure out ways to count particularly hard to reach residents such as the homeless, renters and children younger than 5.

“We need your help in ensuring we get a complete and accurate count,” Behler said.

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