Article 1, Section 2 of the US Constitution mandates that a census be performed every 10 years.
The purpose is quite clear. We live in a representative republic. A census is necessary to make sure there is adequate representation. Each state has the correct number of Congressional representatives, with a minimum of one.
In 2020, the Trump administration wants to add a citizenship question to the census. Since representation is for citizens, having the correct number of Congress people for the citizens not the total population is important.
So the Attorney General of California is suing Trump to block the addition of the citizenship questions.
This is a tacit admission that California has more representatives than can be justified by the citizen population of the state, particularly in urban Democrat controlled areas.
California Liberals can complain that flyover states have too much representation with two Senators, but they’ve been padding thier House seats with illegals.
My prediction is that without illegal immigrants counted, California will lose three Congressional seats.
I guess they worry that illegal aliens will not answer the census if that question is present. That’s the only explanation, because the answer to that question doesn’t actually matter. Representation is in proportion to “persons”, not citizens.
That is a matter of debate. The whole 3/5th compromise was how to count slaves for representation. The non slave states wanted no representation for slaves as slaves didn’t get a vote, so slave owners would get representation for themselves and the slaves they owned. Of course slave states wanted slaves to be counted so a small group of voters got more representation.
You could in theory only have one voter in a congressional district if it was home to one citizen and a few million illegals.
Given their actions towards federal law enforcement, they should lose two senators.
I would be fine with revoking their Statehood altogether, and placing the territory under a military governor pending Reconstruction. I expect once you got away from the coast there’d be plenty of Californians who’d rather be ruled by a US Army General than Jerry Brown and his ilk. Perhaps LTG Honoré of Katrina fame could be called out of retirement?