The Census Bureau has floated two rules that would change who is counted for congressional seats and what the 2030 form asks. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick signed the package on September 8, and it appeared in the Federal Register on September 10, a day after the administration unveiled it.
Who would be counted, and how the bureau would decide
Under the residence rule, citizens and lawful permanent residents would be assigned to the place where they lawfully spent the most days between Jan. 3 and April 1 of the census year, with tax records as supporting evidence. Every other foreign national would fall outside the apportionment base, a group that stretches past undocumented immigrants to include people holding temporary or otherwise less permanent status. The bureau's reasoning is that such residents lack the enduring tie and allegiance that "usual residence" implies.
To sort people into categories, the agency says it is weighing the use of Treasury, Homeland Security, State Department, Postal Service and other government files, plus commercial data. It also asks the public whether the short form should carry a legal-status question.
Race and ethnicity questions on the chopping block
A separate rule would bar any question about racial or ethnic identity or sexual orientation from the short form and from every other questionnaire used to enumerate the population. Questions on biological sex, birth date and household relationships could remain. Commerce argues a leaner form would draw more responses and lower the risk that individuals could be identified in published data. The separate American Community Survey, which plays no part in the head count, would be unaffected.
Critics counter that mapping districts to match the size of each community would get much harder without those figures. The change would end a practice that dates to the first count in 1790.
Why Latino communities are watching closely
The 2020 census missed almost 5% of Latinos, according to the bureau's own quality check, a rate more than triple the 2010 figure. UCLA professor Matt Barreto, whose research figured in the litigation over the 2020 citizenship question, told CapRadio that mixed-status households kept omitting members even after a 2019 court order kept that question off the form. The result, he said, is that "we're not actually getting a true count."
House seats: California and beyond
California slipped from 53 to 52 House seats after 2020, the first decline in its history. Eric McGhee, a senior fellow at the Public Policy Institute of California, notes that no state has more immigrants, so additional losses in 2030 are possible and excluding immigrants would make them likelier.
Other states would feel it too. A Pew Research Center analysis of the 2020 count suggested California, Florida and Texas would each have lost one seat while Alabama, Minnesota and Ohio picked them up, Roll Call reported. A 2025 study, however, found the national partisan effect since 1980 would have been roughly neutral.
Federal dollars tied to the count
Estimates of the money steered by census data vary widely. The Brennan Center puts it at more than $1.5 trillion a year, a watchdog group counted $2.24 trillion in fiscal 2023, and the Census Bureau itself tied more than $2.8 trillion in fiscal 2021 to its data, a total that included over $700 billion in pandemic programs.
California offers a small-scale preview. Laura Pryor, a research director at the California Budget and Policy Center, says a dip in the number of young children triggered a roughly $75 million cut to state childcare programs in 2025-26. She warns that a deeper undercount could bring reductions to childcare, health, transit and job-training programs.
The legal fight ahead
Opponents point to the constitutional language calling for the "whole number of persons" in each state, which makes no mention of legal status. New York Attorney General Letitia James said she is exploring legal options, and Democratic gubernatorial candidate Xavier Becerra has pledged to challenge the plan if elected. CapRadio said it had not yet heard back from his Republican rival, Steve Hilton.
The proposal itself cites a 2019 Supreme Court decision that allows citizenship questions in principle, though that ruling kept the 2020 question off the form over the administration's explanation. Each rule also carries a severability clause, meaning a judge could strike down one while leaving the other standing.
Next steps and deadlines
The public can submit comments on Regulations.gov (docket USBC-2026-0628) through Oct. 13, and Tribal Nations have until Nov. 2. The docket had logged 7,330 comments as of Sept. 23. After the window closes, the bureau will choose whether to adopt either rule. Congress holds final authority over the count, and a new administration in 2029 could reverse course, so lawsuits and further changes are likely.
