Why The Census Matters

Welcome to Another Way, the podcast produced by Equal Citizens, a nonpartisan pro democracy organization founded by Lawrence Lessig. This is Adam Icahn, the organization's campaigns manager. Before we begin, please consider supporting us on Patreon. If you become a Patreon supporter, not only will you allow us to keep this podcast going, but you'll get access to some bonus episodes and other cool rewards. To sign up, go to patreon.com/citizens that's P-A-T-R-E-O-N.com/citizens now to our episode for today. Joining me in the studio is Beth Huang. Beth is the director of Massachusetts Voter Table, a statewide coalition of grassroots organizations that uses integrated voter engagement to expand civic access, participation, and representation of communities of color. She convenes Mass Counts to prepare the grassroots organizations for the 2020 census. She advocates for increased civic access and voting rights as part of the Election Modernization Coalition in Massachusetts as well. Prior to joining Mass Voter table in 2016, Beth worked in the labor and students movement for six years, first as a union organizer at the American Federation of State, county, and Municipal Employees, and then as the Student Labor Action Project Coordinator at Jobs with justice and the U.S. student Association. So today's topic is going to be the U.S. census, and I'm really excited about this episode. For one, it gave me a chance to do a deep dive into a subject about which I frankly knew very little. But also, it was a chance to prove to my new intern, Evelyn, who is actually in the studio with us today, that the census could actually be really cool and exciting. So I look forward to this conversation. And as we'll discuss, the census is the backbone of our democracy, which explains why it's so prominently featured in our Constitution. And by the time you're listening to this episode, it will have already begun in a small town in Alaska of approximately 600 people, because that's when people could go to enumerate the folks living there. So, Beth, welcome.

Thanks, Adam. Hi.

So what is the census? Why do we care?

Well, the census is a huge undertaking that happens every 10 years. It is mandated by the U.S. constitution and helps allocate over $8800 billion of federal resources that goes straight into our communities for things that we need. Things like affordable housing, which we need every dollar that we could possibly get for affordable housing here in Greater Boston. It also goes to public transportation. I know that when I ride the red Line to work, it seems like our public transportation system also needs every dollar that it could get. Importantly, it helps fund subsidies for childcare for millions of people across the country, Title I public schools, and very importantly, Medicaid.

Right. And it determines allocation of congressional representation, for sure. And it also determines redistricting. You use the data to determine the districts.

Definitely. And we actually had to coincide with the first day of enumeration by the U.S. census Bureau in Alaska. We had our first meeting with the chairs of the redistricting committee in Massachusetts, since redistricting happens through the state legislature here in Mass.

So what is actually on the census form? What is it that when people are asked to fill it out that they're actually answering?

So the census form is actually really simple. It's just nine questions. I have them right in front of me. So the first is how many people were living or staying in this house, apartment, or mobile home on April 1, 2020? So April 1 is what we call Census day. You're supposed to count when wherever you are currently living on April 1st. The second question is, were there any additional people staying here on April 1, 2020 that you did not include in question one? So many of us live with roommates. There are so many people who are housing insecure who might be bouncing from couch to couch. We wanna make sure that everyone is counted in the 2020 census. The third question is, is this a house? Is it an apartment? This kind of data is really important for understanding in each household. The next sets of questions are simple. So what's your telephone number? The Census Bureau wants to be able to follow up with anyone whose submissions might be a little bit confusing. Which many households, especially multifamily households, are more confusing than the kind of single family home in a suburb. Then the next sets of questions are super simple. So it's what's your name? What's your sex? What's your age? And date of birth? The census's race questions are always a little wonky and reflect at least where the federal government stands on racial categories at the time. So the first question about race is, is person one of Hispanic, Latino, or Spanish origin? And then the next race question is, what is person one's race? And then you fill it out for all of the subsequent people in each household that includes young children. In 2010, Massachusetts missed counting 20 kids across the Commonwealth. That means that there are fewer dollars for our public education system, for CHIP and lots of other services that kids depend on.

Yeah, and we'll, we'll definitely get into that about, you know, undercounting and why certain populations are more difficult to get a real good sense of how many People of that demographic or age group there are in a certain jurisdiction. So generally speaking, Beth, these are pretty simple questions. This is not really a pop quiz. This is really as simple as an enumeration trying to figure out how many people there are in a given house, in a given block, in a given tract, in a given city, and just basic, basic demographic information about those individuals.

These are the most basic questions that people know about their own identity.

So I want to go back a little bit. So why is it that this determines federal funding or state funding? What is the mechanism here? Why does the count of people matter?

The data that we get from the federal census determines so many public policy decisions, we can't even count them. We need to know how many kids there are to understand what resources our public schools need. We need to know how many people are over the age of 65 to understand how many resources to put into Medicare. We need to know what the number of apartments is so that we have enough resources for sewer systems across the country. So this kind of data feeds into so many different types of public policy decisions because the public provides so much that is often invisible or that we take for granted every day. And so we need all of the data on who lives where to determine how public resources are spent and allocated across the country.

And there are a lot of, like federal and state programs that automatically will roll out money depending upon population. I mean, there are federal programs that allocate grants to all the states and it's in proportion to population or population of a certain subgroup or population of poverty, for example, that that is how automatically federal funds are distributed among different states within communities. And, and that is how a lot of public policy is drafted to automatically reflect and allocate based on census information. And that seems critical to this conversation, which is that for every person that you don't count, you're actually losing track of not just, it's not just a hypothetical data question. It's, you're, you're actually losing thousands of dollars potentially in, in certain public funds, right?

For every person who isn't counted, that means that $2,300 is missing from their community every single year for 10 years. And that's less money for community development block grants, which provide so much of the language assistance and affordable housing across this country. It means that there are resources missing for Head Start, which provides quality childcare for low income kids. It means that there's less money for SNAP and for food assistance for lots of communities. So these are not hypothetical questions. These are very real public services and goods that so many people across the state, country depend on every day.

And it really could be the difference between, you know, life or death, or at minimum, between a healthy quality of life and one that is precarious.

I think this is especially important for kids. 10 years is someone's entire childhood, right. And when our kids don't have enough resources for healthcare for a chip, or don't have enough resources for their Title 1 public school, so those are generally schools with disproportionately more low income kids. When there aren't enough resources for Head Start or childcare subsidies, it makes someone's entire childhood that much worse.

So ultimately, Beth, this is really about power. This is about how much power a certain community has, either through representation, in terms of how many congressional seats the state is allocated, the way those lines are eventually drawn when redistricting begins the following year. An economic power about which communities have the right to receive public money. And if that's skewed, then that power is altered. And so this is really why it's about the. When I say that the census is the backbone of our democracy is because ultimately all of our public decisions rely on having an accurate count.

That's right. So my congresswoman, Ayanna Pressley, often says, if you don't count in the federal census, then in the eyes of the federal government, you don't count.

Right.

So we need to all participate in the 2020 Census to make sure that our communities are seen, heard, and counted in public policy decisions, in grant allocations, in determining how many representatives we have, not just in Congress, but at every single level of government, from City hall to the State House to the federal government.

And I want to make just one more kind of wonky point, which is that this is also critical for all sorts of social science. Right. In addition to power, it's also the one of the only ways, perhaps the only way, to have a baseline to assess the health of our very society in terms of whether it's economics or, you know, sociologists, political scientists. I mean, how else would we know, you know, racial disparities in, in child mortality rates or in, you know, per capita income or other ways to assess and adjust other statistics. The base is the census.

Right. And I think this is particularly important for Massachusetts, which has an economy that is so based off of education and healthcare. Every, seemingly every big institution in Massachusetts is a big research university. All of those researchers depend on accurate data for their research. And then the other sets of institutions are huge hospitals and healthcare institutions. They all depend on billions of dollars of Medicaid funding that comes into Massachusetts every single year. And then finally, as you may have noticed, there are many questions about demographic data, such as income, such as crime statistics, and more that come from the U.S. census Bureau, but don't come directly from the decennial census. Those statistics that are more fine grain come from what's called the American Community Survey, which is a sample of the population, not a count of the entire population. However, if the full count in the decennial census, which is happening in 2020, is wrong, then the statistical sample that all of the other statistics are based off of are also wrong.

Right. And public polling, too. I mean, public polling weights. When you do polling, you're weighting your sample based on demographic information. So if that's wrong, then your polling is going to be wrong. The miscount in the census trickles down to so many different aspects of our social science.

Totally.

And so. And that's for a decade. I mean, again, a bad census lasts for a full decade. And the point that I want to make is also that there are economic reasons why we want a full census count, that US Businesses use census data to determine, you know, where to put a new store or where to, you know, or what resources to use, what. What goods to supply. So this, this is both kind of a social science question, but it's also an economic question. It's a political question. There are many different ways.

There is literally no one who can afford a bad census count.

Exactly. Then let's talk about the big news with the census windows in the news, and not for good reason, which is the Trump administration's attempt to add an additional question to the ones that you had listed earlier about whether or not you are a US Citizen. So why. Why is that such a problem? Why was it such a problem? Rather, give us a little bit of the recap and why it was so traumatizing for so many people.

Okay, so first, I want to start by saying that we won, and there will be no question about citizenship that will appear on the 2020 census form. So I guess the three, let's say three, reasons why the citizenship question was so problematic are first, given the climate of fear and distrust in the federal government, adding a question about are you a citizen of the United States? Realistically and reasonably would have caused a huge amount of fear in immigrant communities, and that would have caused a major undercount in many, many immigrant communities across the country.

Just to put a point on this, you're saying that the communities that would be deterred that it wouldn't be an accurate count. They would be underrepresented in the overall count.

So by the U.S. census Bureau's own studies, the citizenship question would have decreased participation in the 2020 census of immigrants by 2%, which represents billions of dollars.

Right?

2% doesn't seem like a lot, but when you think of what 2% is off of hundreds of billions of dollars, that means there are going to be lots of children who go without sufficient food, funding for health insurance. There are going to be way fewer dollars in affordable housing in immigrant communities. They're already suffering from massive real estate speculation and gentrification. It would mean that there would be less funding for things like language assistance that immigrant communities really need. So that 2% represents billions of dollars of decrease in the amount of goods and services that immigrant communities would have expected from the federal government. The second major impact of the citizenship question was how we do redistricting. I believe that this is the real reason why the Trump administration was pushing for the citizenship question. While their reasoning was to enforce the Voting Rights act, which.

Which was pretty transparently preposterous. It was ridiculous.

Yeah, Ridiculous. Totally ridiculous. But I think the real reason behind the citizenship question was to get really fine grained data for what's called citizen voting age population. Citizen voting age population, which sometimes we call cvap, is a measure of all of the US citizens, either native born or naturalized, who are over the age of 18. So it's the number of eligible voters. And currently the way that we do redistricting is we base districts on who lives in a district. So if you have a district that is really disproportionately under the age of 18, and there are lots of young people, there are still going to be the same number of people in that district as a district that has a population that is disproportionately over 18 and can vote. The same goes for people who are US citizens or not. So if there is a district that is really disproportionately made up of unnaturalized immigrants, and there are a lot of those in greater Boston and in gateway cities across Massachusetts, those districts still have the same number of people as districts that are mostly citizens and mostly native born. And so what the citizenship question would have done was it would have created really fine grained data for any legislative body or redistricting commission that wanted to draw district lines based off of only eligible voters to be able to do that very effectively. So the major victory is that these redistricting commissions or legislative bodies that draw the new lines need to include everyone. So they need to include people under the age of 18. They need to include people who are not citizens of the US and that means that everyone still counts in our democracy. And that's why the citizenship question was such a threat to the bedrock of democracy, because it fundamentally was about who counts in our democracy and who's erased from our democracy. And so we are glad to have won this round of the fight. It's not over yet. And so we really need to continue to build power through the next decade to make sure that we continue to win this battle in the legislatures, in the courts, in the administrations, and more.

Yeah, and just to kind of dig a bit deeper here, with CVAP data using on redistricting, you know, those districts using CVAP would be more rural. They'd really discount people of color. It would have been a hyper gerrymander. I mean, it really would have been the next frontier of partisan gerrymandering. So preventing that. I think the Trump administration still wants to try to do it. They issued an exec, or he issued an executive order to basically try and come up with citizenship data outside of the actual census. But it does seem like a little bit more of a long shot. But, but there will be litigation to follow. The fight's not completely over over whether or not you can use CVAP for gerrymandering, but certainly major victory to not have it on the long form or the, sorry, short form Census.

Right. Huge victory. So one thing to know is that the American Community Survey does ask about citizenship. That should be there.

And that's, that's a long form. That's, that's the, the one that goes to only a fraction of the American

public, That's the fine grain data census. So just in the way that the 2020 census doesn't ask about your experience with crime in your neighborhood, it doesn't ask about your income, it does not ask about a large number of data points that help us determine public policy. The 2020 census also does not ask about citizenship questions. Right. Citizenship status or immigration status.

Okay, so let's go back to the census now. So the citizenship question is not going to be on there. And so now we have to ensure an accurate count. But even without the citizenship question, every census, there's always an undercount. And the question is just how big the undercount is going to be. So what is an undercount? We've already talked about it. But just give us your best definition of what an undercount is and who is the most likely to be undercounted.

That's a great question. What's considered hard to count is when the self response. So when you fill out your own census, you used to mail it in, but now you fill it out online or you can call in, is under 72%. After someone doesn't fill out the census for about two months, from mid March to mid May, then the Census Bureau will send out all of its enumerators to knock on doors. So when the self response for a particular census tract is under 72%, that's considered hard to count. As you can imagine, the Census Bureau doesn't count everyone equally. Well, it's just like how people don't equally participate in every election. And so people of color, immigrants, renters, children under five, people who don't speak English as their first language, and many other groups do not fill out the census at the same rate as people who live in single family homes, often are white, are middle or upper income, or more so because many people are historically undercounted and also don't trust the government, we need trusted messengers to go out in lots of these historically undercounted communities to ensure that everyone understands that the 2020 census is confidential, it's important, and that it's actually very easy to fill out.

I should have actually underscored this earlier, Beth, which is that the Census Bureau is prohibited from sharing identifiable information to other branches of the government or anybody else.

That's right. So there is a strong confidentiality protection called Title 13. If someone shares the private responses of the 2020 census, then that Census Bureau worker is subject to $250,000 in fines in up to five years of prison. And I think what's important is that this law, Title 13, has been challenged many times before. So for example, after 9, 11, the FBI and other parts of the federal government, many parts of the kind of carceral state apparatus, tried getting a hold of the individual level records of Muslim Americans, mostly in New York and in New Jersey. And Title 13 protected people's information. As we are on the verge of potentially another war, you know, maybe by the time this comes out, several other wars, you never know, that's when the private responses are most vulnerable. So the bad news is whenever we are on the precipice of a war, that's when the government wants access to individual level records the most. The, the good news is this law, Title 13, has stood the test of time several times since the 1950s when it was put in place and it

was put in place after the Japanese internment camps. I mean, that was the reason to protect this information is because they use census information, the kind of identifiable responses for really bad ends.

Right. So in the 1940s when the US went to war, then the federal government sought out the individual records of where Japanese Americans lived. And that is a dark, dark point in our history for many, many reasons. And after World War II, the federal government put in this new protection to keep people's individual level records confidential.

Right. So let's go to Boston, where we are today, which is Boston is one of the hardest places or has some of the largest percentage of groups that are hardest to count. Why?

Great question. Boston as a city is one of the places with the highest proportion of our residents living in hard to count census tracts. As you can imagine, there are lots of immigrants in Massachusetts. I think 1.2 million people across the state are foreign born. And many of the immigrants in Massachusetts call Boston home. In addition to that, there are lots of young people who are moving a lot. I know that I personally usually move every two years or so. We have a lot of young people living in off campus housing. As you know, lots of students have left for the summer by May 15, and when Census Day is April 1, May 15 is just around the corner. In addition to that, the local housing crisis makes the census count even harder than it than it normally would be. Many, many immigrant households, many low income households will double or triple up. So you have people living on porches, you have two families living in a flat of a triple decker. You have people living in garages. There's lots of housing insecurity in boston. I think 1 in 10 boston public schools students is housing insecure. So they're bouncing from their aunt's couch to their godmother's place to maybe a cousin's house. And that makes it really difficult to count those Boston public schools students who are housing insecure.

Right. So I mean, that really underscores just how difficult this is. I mean, the census is an enumeration of every single person in the United States. And that means you have to count, you have to find a way to count every single one of those groups that you just mentioned. And so it's very, very difficult. So one of the ways that they're trying to improve it this year, Beth is transitioning to having mostly of the first responses. So the self responses be via Internet. So again they're, they're just for our listeners. There are multiple steps here. The first step is the self responses. So before Most people got a thing in the mail, then you fill it out by hand. It was an actual piece of paper. Now most people are going to get a little form that has a code that you enter to go online to just fill out the census online. And theoretically that's going to reduce costs. It will hopefully, hopefully increase compliance, increase the likelihood that someone will go online and just fill it out quickly and be done with it. So that's the first step. Then the second step, as you said, is reminders. They don't do that. Some people will, I think, believe, just be given the paper form and not do it online because they're not a part of a demographic that is likely to have access to the Internet, which we will talk about in a second. And then after the third step, if they don't respond from the reminders, a census worker will go and knock on their door and actually physically enumerate them. So but Beth, transitioning to the Internet, this is a big deal for the census and I think it holds potentially a lot of promise, but it also holds some shortfalls. So let's talk a bit about the good news and the bad news about transitioning to having self responses be via Internet.

So for many people, so for Adam, for myself, for Evelyn, we're on our phones all the time, we're on our computers all the time, filling out a form online is not a problem. However, for all of the historically undercounted constituencies, shifting the response to the census to online makes it that much more difficult. There are 338,000 households in Massachusetts that have no broadband access that includes a data plan on your phone. So there are 338,000 households across our commonwealth that lack Internet access. Those households tend to be concentrated in very low income areas and very rural areas. So I think what that means for us. Oh, and in addition to online self response, people can call in. So there will be phone lines for 12 languages in addition to English.

So people can call in and basically they ask the questions and then we'll fill it out for them. Right, right.

And so that is another option that I think is helpful. And then in places that are very low income, that have poor broadband access, in places that are very rural and also lack broadband access, some people will be mailed a census form. But for the most part, for a large majority of people, the best way to respond to the census is either online or over the phone.

And I just want to really again highlight this because we don't often think about those who aren't connected to the Internet. Right. I mean, I think that reformers, you know, generally speaking, we have access to the Internet. I mean, we're recording a podcast now. We rely on the Internet to disseminate this podcast. But I think it's a real critical thing when it comes to enumerating every single person in the United States. Right. Not just, you know, those who vote. It's really everybody, regardless of. Of wealth, regardless of income. And the simple fact is, is that not everybody in United States has access to the Internet. So this is a real tough problem.

Right.

I mean, it affects some groups more than others.

Totally. I mean, public administration over a private commodity is really difficult.

Right, right.

We're trying to do something big that is a public process. But when broadband is commodified and isn't shared equally across the commons, it makes providing for the public good really difficult.

And also the other thing that's going to hopefully not, but potentially will suppress responses is just the simple threat of cybersecurity or cyber attack on the census. I mean, the. I believe they're using aws, the Amazon server, but I mean, you know, we see this all the time. It's. It's a little bit of a different infrastructure. But I do think people are worried that, you know, you have to. The Census Bureau has to prepare to have millions upon millions of responses coming in online at the same time, and they have to make sure that it's secure. It's a lot of identifiable information about people. And, you know, given a lot of the. The rhetoric, you know, I think very justified fear around election security problems, this just makes the. Someone who's already iffy about responding or giving the government information, you know, private information, it makes them even more unwilling to do that potentially if it's via online versus a paper form. Now, I'm not saying that's that's necessarily justified insofar as I don't think there's reason to be worried about it, but it's certainly something that, in the literature that I've been reading about this, that it's certainly a fear that the Census Bureau and others experts are at least flagging as a potential cause of an undercount.

Mm, yeah, that's absolutely right. I mean, the one thing is, if people are filling out the census form on paper, someone is still typing the data into a database. So there have been safeguards around the privacy of census data in the past that the Census Bureau has taken extremely seriously to bulk up ahead of the 2020 decennial census. However, we also live in this political climate where we're constantly talking about election security. And I mean, we all remember the rollout of Obamacare in 2013, right? These two factors don't instill a high level of confidence amongst the public, but it is really important to fill out the census.

So one of the more exciting things I've heard about the rollout to, you know, the, the Internet option is that, you know, it really does increase the importance of public spaces like libraries. I mean, libraries are going to have to step up. I mean, I've read reports of, you know, private institutions like whether it's a barber shop or whatever places where the communities go to that may provide Internet. And that will be a space potentially where not only would you have a community leader that you trust, but, but also have access to the common good of an Internet to then fill out the census. You know, you get it in the mail and maybe you bring it somewhere to the library to get access to the Internet. And that's going to be critical. I mean, those, those kind of cultural institutions and political institutions and community institutions or the church, for example, or synagogue or wherever, you know, the importance of those civil, you know, civil society groups could be incredibly important. I know that that's one big part of your job now is to coordinate those groups, to make sure that people can route those who may not have Internet or may not have access to all the, you know, information to answer the census. Although generally speaking, it's pretty simple. Survey to the people that they need to get to in order to get it done.

Totally. That's exactly right. In this political climate of fear and distrust in the federal government, we need to empower every trusted messenger to share why the census is vitally important to their community. That could be the children's librarian who reads to kids every day. That could be the public school teachers. That could be healthcare professionals. It also means that we've worked with many faith organizations and congregations. It means that we've worked with community organizations across the commonwealth to get out the count. It's more important than ever on this census in particular, given the distrust of the federal government and the administration that trusted messengers are involved in sharing, why the census is important, why our communities depend on public goods, and finally, that it's confidential.

Right. So let's talk actually about what you do in your organization. So what exactly are you doing right now to ensure an accurate count?

Talking to you, spreading the word however you can. I know. Okay. So the real way that we are doing that, in addition to this is we convene a group Called MASS Counts, we partner with the Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy Coalition, MIRA Coalition, the Massachusetts Nonprofit Network, and the Asian Pacific Islanders Civic Action Network in particular. To get out the count. We work with civic engagement organizations, service providing nonprofit organizations, and many trusted community leaders to deliver training, especially especially in historically undercounted communities. We have been promoting the Census Bureau enumerator jobs which at least in Suffolk county where we are right now, pay $27.50. These are not terrible jobs. And then we also have been promoting the census through community events and public forums. We've been working with legislators and other elected officials to spread the word. And we even advocated to get funded $4 million in state resources for nonprofits and local municipalities to get out the count.

I think that's the most shocking thing that I learned is Census Bureau relies so heavily upon so many different organizations to make this possible. I mean, the more you think about it, the more you realize that it's true. The U.S. census is the largest peacetime mobilization. And trying to count 320 some odd million people is a task that even the federal government can't do alone. So it really does rely on hundreds of thousands of individuals across the country to help talk to community leaders to actually play local organizations like yours to actually do the work, fill the gaps where the federal government and state government maybe doesn't know the community as well. There's a lot of parts of the United States that the government is not fully up to date on. And so I think that's the most shocking thing I've learned is just how critical it is when community organizations come together to help ensure an accurate count.

Right. It's a real ecosystem to make sure that everyone counts in the 2020 census. I like to think of it as sometimes lanes on a track. So we are all trying to get to the same finish line. But you have the Census Bureau track that is hiring thousands of people across this country to do the physical enumeration of people and households across the are the nonprofit organizations that provide services. So we are working with some organizations that provide tax prep services to low income people, which happens every spring. And so we want all of those tax prep services to share information about why the census is important. We are working with lots of civic engagement organizations that knock on doors in low income communities and communities of color to make sure that everyone understands how to fill out the census and why it's important. Much, much like a get out the vote operation.

I mean, it really is almost like a get out the vote operation, right? It really is almost. You have a start date, you have an end date, and you have to just go 247 until that ends.

Right.

I mean, Beth, you've done so much get out the vote, then you are an election machine. And it really is a similar process. Right. It really is kind of a pure adrenaline rush from start to end of every additional person. I mean, as you said, that's the difference between thousands of dollars in money that basically, you know, the people going out there, I mean, they're really bringing money home to the community.

Totally. I mean, we are going to be knocking on doors across the state, especially in communities of color and low income communities in Boston and in gateway cities, basically wherever the federal government redlined during the New Deal, we are going to knock on doors to make sure that people get their fair share of resources and representation in the next decade. The other groups that I think are vital to an accurate count are the local municipal governments. People might not trust the federal government, but often they call their city councilor because there's a pothole on their street.

Right, right, right, right, right. It's much more retail politics.

Totally. So we're relying on government officials who have the trust of communities because they have provided decent services and have listened to people. So those are the many tracks of what I call census land.

Right, right, right.

And we're all in it together to get a complete count.

It is also one of the few times. Right. Beth, I mean, I know your work that you're actually really on the same side as like state house leaders because, you know, state politicians, they. Well, not all, but most of them do want an accurate count because it makes their job easier.

Right. There's no state legislator in Massachusetts that wants to raise taxes because they didn't get enough funding from the federal government.

Right.

That seems extremely unpopular. So it is much easier to invest on the front end in a. In an accurate count that allows them to make the public policy decisions that are. That are accurate and reflective of who actually lives in Massachusetts.

There are states, though, like Texas, that have allocated no state money whatsoever to ensure an accurate account. So why they're doing that we can argue about. But I will just say that not every state government is as. Is on the same track as you are. That's certainly clear that across the country there is real contention over who is fit to count as a member of this American community.

That's right.

So I want a story. I want something from you in terms of. Has there been a moment so far that you've been doing the census Work where you have gotten someone who may not be willing to fill out the census form.

Oh yeah. There is so much skepticism about the federal government and for good reason. Right. The federal government is, you know, using the, the public charge rule to make people choose between the security of their immigration status and, and any benefits that they need, like SNAP and other public benefits that they need. The federal government is raiding workplaces in the south in particular. There are lots of reasons right now not to trust the federal government. But what I think is really impactful is when we break down all of the ways that federal services and funding impact our communities. And basically whenever we talk about the impact of the Community Development Block Grant on affordable housing in Section 8, people really perk up because the housing crisis in greater Boston and across the state have gotten so bad that people will take almost any action that they need to within reason to help the get more resources for affordable housing.

So what you're saying just, I mean, just to summarize this, you're saying that you've actually been in situations where there are people who are basically like, no, I'm not filling it out, but if you actually articulate the kind of substantive ends of like this is going to, by filling this out, you will make it more likely that money will be routed to this particular purpose in the community. Yeah, that, that's enough in some respects to, if not assuage them. If not to say that there's, there's not reason to be fearful, but to say that like the risk may be worth it or I mean, not a risk. Right. You have to, I guess you have to do, have to articulate there, there isn't a risk because your information is not going to be shared. But I guess it just makes it easier for them to understand that.

Right. The two most useful things that I can share with people is the way that federal funding directly impacts their daily lives. I think people care the most about housing, health care, education and transportation. Unsurprisingly, those are the things that people depend on every day. And then the second major thing that tends to help people think about the census is that people that your individual data is confidential. Your individual level data will not be shared with your landlord, it will not be shared with your employer. It will not be shared with Immigration and Customs Enforcement. It will not be shared with your local police department.

Are those some of the things that people are scared about that it's not just about like ICE, for example, but it's also like your landlord totally employer.

Right. So if you are a Low income immigrant family that has two families living in one flat of a triple decker.

Oh, I see.

There are lots of people who are afraid that their landlord will retaliate against them. What is really important to share with them is that one of the steps to resolving the affordable housing crisis is to actually get enough resources for affordable housing to stop displacement and that their information will not be shared with their landlord.

And so have you ever had, I mean, do you have conversations with people and they just know everything about the census? I mean, this is kind of the flip side, which is that people are fearful of it. But is anyone really excited about it?

Yes, I think so. There are some real census veterans in Massachusetts. I have the pleasure of working with Gladys Vega of the Chelsea Collaborative, who has been working on getting out the count in every census since 1990. I get to work with Dr. Paul Wantanabe, who is an amazing human being at the UMass Boston Institute for Asian American Studies, who's worked on every decennial census since 1980. There are some people who have such a high level of expertise and institutional memory of how the decennial census went down in many different decades, who are all around in Boston and in Massachusetts, who really deeply understand why their communities need federal resources to thrive.

I mean, that's an amazing resource for you.

Oh, totally.

So how much of this. And I want to go into a little bit more about some other parts of the census. But just as an aside, you are an organizer, Beth. I mean, you have some real organizing chops. Does that make organizing for the census easier? I mean, do you need an organizing, a degree in community organizing to ensure an accurate account or can anybody help with this? I mean, any community leader can play a real role here, right?

As long as you know someone, you can tell them to participate in the 2020 census. I think the most important thing is to ask the question about whether they feel like their communities are adequately represented or adequately resourced. In most low income communities of color in Massachusetts or across this country, people will say no. Right. And so that there is a vicious cycle between the government doesn't support, see my community's needs, so I'm not going to participate. And then if I don't participate, then the government doesn't see my community's needs. And so it's actually really important to ask people about what it would mean for their communities to be adequately resourced in the next 10 years or adequately represented in the next 10 years. You don't need to be an expert organizer to ask those questions, but they are the core of the message about why the census is so important.

Right. And so one. One of the big problems and why I think this is so important that any community leader can, can step up is I think misinformation around the census is going to be a really big problem. We saw this with elections. I mean, whether or not, you know, the actual infrastructure of the cybersecurity, you know, whether or not that's a problem, I do think misinformation is going to be a problem. And Facebook recently said they would ban any ads or posts that spread misinformation about, like, when the census is. And other stuff, which is a great step. And I think that, you know, one of the things that is going to be critical is for trusted members of the community to give accurate information and to stand up and tell people in their networks of like, there have been reports of, you know, this rumor going around. Let me dispel it. Let me, let me tell you the facts. Do you agree? Is that the way, is that the best way to combat misinformation around the census?

Mm. So there are two things that I think are really important. The first is that anyone who has a trusted relationship to any of the historically undercounted constituencies has a responsibility to share accurate information about why the census is important, when it's going to happen, what to expect, what definitely is a scam. The census absolutely is not going to ask questions about what your Social Security number is or what your credit card number is or your bank information.

But that's certainly going to happen. And my fear is that some people, I think, inevitably fall for it, because if it looks like it's from an official governmental agency, you know, Photoshop can do some remarkable things.

And that's why it's so important for clergy, for directors of senior centers, for anyone who helps with immigration paperwork prep or more, to be armed with all of the accurate information about what people should expect about the 2020 census. And that's also why we're. And the second major thing is that's why we're going to be opening lots of questionnaire assistance centers and community based organizations, public libraries, public schools and more across Massachusetts. We're working with the Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy Coalition and the statewide Complete Count Committee to open what potentially could be like 1,000 questionnaire assistance centers across the state to ensure that people who have questions have a place to go. And so we'll be knocking on doors to tell people. And if you need help, come to your community health center, your congregation, the public library, or any other place where people often go for help on workers rights issues, issues with their landlord or more. So we'll be opening up all those sites to make sure that people have a place to go to ask their questions.

It really is like relational organizing. I mean, it really is. It's amazing. The more I learn about this, the more I just see this is just an even more elaborate get up the vote in some respect, because everybody matters whether you're an eligible voter or not. And that's kind of the beauty of this thing. So what would be a successful year for you, Beth? I mean, what. What would a successful year of, you know, working on the census to ensure an accurate count look like?

I think what a. What, what a successful 2020 census means for a group like the Massachusetts Voter Table or Mass Counts means is that people have stronger relationships within their communities. They have a better assessment about what are the issues that their communities really care about. It's so clear to me after doing dozens or possibly hundreds of these mini census talks to hundreds if not thousands of people, that people care so much about their community's resources and representation. People so badly want to be referred to, reflected in the story of this country, in the story of their community, and that the census is really an opportunity to share why their community matters so much and what resources and representation means to them. So that's the touchy feely version of

it, but that's about power. You actually see this as like in the process of being enumerated. You see the potential for community power.

Right? People really want to be seen. People really want to be heard. Our goal is to convince them that being counted is part of being seen and heard, and to seize their opportunity to take power in addition to an accurate count. We want people's relationships with their neighbors, with people in their congregations, with people who also receive services at the same nonprofits, people who are parents of kids in public schools or in Head Start to have a closer set of relationships with each other. Our people are our power. And so when our people are more connected around a shared set of goals and a shared set of issues, then we have that much power moving into the next decade. And that's What a successful 2020 community mobilization really means to us.

And in addition to that, ensuring the highest possible count as possible. I mean, this is the census is certainly most people think it's wonky and it is. And I think this conversation has been really into the nitty gritty of this stuff, but I think that really kind of underscores the power here, right, is that it really is when you're counted, it's a form of power. I mean, I keep saying that, but this really is just about who has power. As, as all these democracy reforms that we talk about on this podcast are, whether it's voting rights, whether it's money in politics, whether it's gerrymandering, whether or not it's an accurate census. It's all about power. It's all about whose voice matters in our democracy. And, you know, I think that this is going to be a real test. I think that there's going to be a real climate of fear. And, you know, I've been really distraught reading a lot about the census because it seems to have been underfunded. There was no director of the Census Bureau for a while. You know, it just, it seems like there are a lot of places in which it could go. Something can go wrong when you're dealing with the largest peacetime mobilization in our nation's history. And if you don't have everything together. And for our listeners, I want to be clear, this is not something, you know, you prepare for three years beforehand. Basically, as soon as the census is over, you're planning for the next one ten years later. This is to do something of this magnitude requires 10 years. And probably 10 years isn't even enough time to do this. And it's always shoestring budget, it's always kind of working up to the buzzer beater, right? It's always doing this in the last minute. But thus far it's worked. I mean, to varying degrees of success. I mean, again, there's always been an undercount of historically oppressed groups. But you'd like to think that we're moving towards a better path. The question is just whether or not people are going to stand up and ensure everyone is counted. So, Beth, before, before we go, that kind of concludes what we want to talk about, the census. But I do, since I have you on the podcast and I wanted, I've been wanting to have this conversation for a while. On the podcast is let's talk about Massachusetts. We're here in Massachusetts. We don't often talk about state level reform in the past. In a previous episode, I talked to a young Rabbi Michael Pollack about politics in Pennsylvania. And in Pennsylvania, it's a little different because there's divided control of government between a Republican legislature and a Democratic governor. Here in Massachusetts, it's a little different because the Democrats hold soup majorities in both houses.

The legislature is made up 82% of Democrats.

82% of Democrats. So this is a super, super blue state. Yes, but the government here could not be more dysfunctional. Can you just talk a little bit about your experience here? You are a super lobbyist there, and about just some of the things that you'd like to see in Massachusetts and what you're fighting for?

I don't know if I'm a super lobbyist. I guess an illustrative example is we were lobbying to get a million dollars for local municipalities to coordinate complete count committees in the fall. You would think that with a completely democratically controlled legislature, this would be smooth sailing, pretty easy to get. And that part actually was relatively easy. However, the supplemental budget, which we were trying to get this incorporated into, took, I think, two and a half months to pass. The state of Massachusetts had an extra, I think, almost billion dollars in tax revenue in the past year because there has been pretty substantial economic growth here and so there. So the state legislature was trying to figure out how to spend about 600, $700 million of this $1 billion surplus. And the, the Senate Ways and Means Committee was so at odds over the House Ways and Means Committee that it took them two additional months to pass this supplemental budget. And the main hang up was the House wanted to give corporations a $35 million tax loophole. Just a total giveaway.

It really is incredible. I mean, I've lived here for three years now, and you really would think, if you didn't know it, that Massachusetts was, you know, that because it was 82% democratic it would work functionally well, but it really doesn't. And one of the big concerns here is that the power in the state House is really just around 12 people.

Right? It's really concentrated. So there are many incentives that cause this concentration of power in the legislature. And there are many people who can speak to this with greater expertise and detail than I can. But put simply, they're. When we're trying to make progressive change, there's either what I call the problem of the 200. Is it that our issue is very unpopular with the majority of legislators and the answer is usually no, or is it a problem? Of the three, are the speaker of the House, the House Majority Leader, or the Senate president, or sometimes the Ways and Means leadership against what we want. And usually it's the problem of three, not the problem of 200.

And this is something that you've been working on trying to decrease the power at least. But there is a pretty robust movement here for democracy reform. In other words, the issue in Massachusetts may be different than the ones in Pennsylvania. Although I will say, you know, one of the things you're working on right now is same day registration or election day registration. And Pennsylvania, again, a state that's divided control and usually not seen as a bastion of democracy reform, they just passed lowering the window of voter registration to 15 days. So Massachusetts actually has a 20 day window right now. So it's, it's one of the worst in the country, right? It's not the worst, but it's pretty bad.

Right. Some of our partner organizations at the voter table have sued the Secretary of the Commonwealth to try to get rid of the 20 day window. And I think what's so insidious about the 20 day window and the lack of election day registration is that people who are pushed in the margins are pushed to the margins again. I've done election protection work at polling locations in Dorchester and Boston for the past three election cycles. And the most common reason for people having to cast provisional ballots or to be turned away from the polls is that they had to move. Their housing got too expensive and they either got evicted or they had to move and then went to the wrong polling location and election day registration. While it doesn't fix our displacement crisis, it at least is an important correction to preserve the political power of low income renters in this state.

And it really is like pulling teeth to get this through the legislature again. 82% you said, right? 82% democrats in the state house. And this piece of legislation, it hasn't moved in years now it seems like there maybe is a possibility this year finally. But after hundreds upon thousands of hours of organizing, I mean, just like years of organizing to get this potentially through and it's no sure bet, but I just think that's, it's been so fascinating to hear from, you know, from you and others in this state, just how you just don't think about this stuff when you're thinking about democracy form, you think of Georgia, you think of Texas. But I just want to flag to our listeners that the work is not done here. And in fact, sometimes the, the ability to get things done is even made harder because there is just this one, It's a one party state and all the power is concentrated in a handful of people. It's kind of like a perfect representation of our campaign finance system in the Massachusetts state house.

Yeah. What's astonishing is in a state that's so full of renters and students, we don't have election day registration.

Right. It's appalling it really is crazy. I mean, I almost missed the registration deadline when I first moved here and I do democracy reform, so whatever that means. Maybe that's an indictment of me, but Beth, thank you so much for joining us. This has been a fascinating conversation. I've been waiting for this one for months. And happy census. Any final words about those? How can people get involved in the census?

You can get involved in the census in a number of ways. So the first is join your local complete count committee. Most municipalities have it. If you're part of an organization or in the leadership of an organization, make sure that the census is in your newsletter, that it's at least in the announcement section of meetings and events. And then finally, tell your friends, families, family, co workers, people in the same schools as your kids, and more to participate in the 2020 Census this spring.

Excellent. Well, Beth, thank you so much for joining us. And this has been another episode of Another Way. See you next. Sam.