The Fight Against The Citizenship Question: Ensuring Everyone Counts in the 2020 Census is an in-depth look at the multipronged legal and advocacy efforts against the inclusion of a citizenship question in the 2020 Census. The case is one of two such products; the other explores advocacy for federal appropriations to support a fair and accurate 2020 Census. While these cases stand alone, they can also be understood within results from the evaluation of the multi-year national initiative of the Census Subgroup, a part of the Democracy Funders Collaborative.
This case describes the successful nationwide mobilization by census stakeholders against attempts to include a citizenship question in the 2020 Census. The mobilization was a comprehensive and multipronged campaign with multiple strategies and tactics deployed simultaneously. The Census Subgroup commissioned Barsoum Policy Consulting and ORS Impact for this case describing those efforts.
Click here to download the full report: The Fight Against the Citizenship Question
You can also navigate to specific sections of the case with the following links:
- Overview
- Building the Campaign
- The Litigation
- The Arc of Advocacy Escalation
- Shaping the Narrative
- Influencing the Court
- Leveraging Legal Moments
- Conclusion and Lessons Learned
- Appendix
This report is part of a series to assess the work undertaken by the philanthropic and nonprofit community to promote a fair and accurate 2020 census. This includes qualitative and quantitative research by ORS Impact and Barsoum Policy Consulting, vignettes describing the census activities undertaken in each of the states, lessons learned from digital efforts, and more. These reports are hosted on the Funders’ Committee for Civic Participation website. Each was commissioned by the Democracy Funders Collaborative Census Subgroup as an independent voice describing the work that was undertaken related to the 2020 census.