Melissa Joskow / Media Matters
Last Thursday, a memo came to light suggesting that President Donald Trump’s administration added a citizenship question to the 2020 census to benefit “non-Hispanic whites” -- but every single Sunday political news show ignored it.
The Supreme Court is currently considering whether to allow the Trump administration to add a question about citizenship to the 2020 census. Multiple states, cities, and rights groups are challenging the addition on multiple fronts, with many arguing that the question was added illegally and that it would undermine the accuracy of the census by potentially leading to an undercount.
Trump Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross had insisted that the data from the question would “permit more effective enforcement” of the Voting Rights Act and would protect “minority population voting rights.” But on May 30, reports surfaced that “prominent Republican redistricting strategist” Thomas Hofeller “played a significant role in orchestrating the addition” of the question because it would be electorally advantageous for “Republicans and non-Hispanic Whites”:
[Hofeller’s] files show that Hofeller concluded in a 2015 study that adding a citizenship question to the 2020 Census “would clearly be a disadvantage to the Democrats” and benefit white Republicans in redistricting. Hofeller then pushed the idea with the Trump administration in 2017, according to the lawyers’ letter to Furman.
The evidence, first reported by the New York Times, contradicts sworn testimony by Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross’s expert adviser A. Mark Neuman and senior Justice Department official John Gore, as well as other testimony by defendants, the letter said.
The citizenship question, if added, could have major ramifications lasting well beyond 2020, resulting in “an uneven distribution of federal money” and tilting “the political landscape in favor of Republicans.” Despite the issue’s significance, according to a Media Matters search, the major Sunday political news shows -- Meet the Press, Face the Nation, This Week, State of the Union, and Fox News Sunday -- didn’t mention the memo, the census, or the citizenship question during their June 2 shows.
The citizenship question isn’t the only issue Sunday political news shows have recently ignored: Stories related to white nationalism, climate change, and possible presidential corruption have also gotten short shrift. Previous Media Matters studies have found that panels and guests on Sunday shows have been overwhelmingly conservative and white.