Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

Sun editorial:

State leaders on a mission to ensure every Nevada resident is counted

Here’s a strong show of support for Rep. Steven Horsford, Gov. Steve Sisolak and other Nevada leaders working to ensure that the state’s residents are accurately counted in the 2020 U.S. census.

This is a matter that affects all of us — southerners, northerners, city dwellers and rural residents alike. As Horsford noted in a recent interview at the Sun’s offices, Nevada communities stand to lose $20,000 in federal funding for each person not counted.

Not only that, but an accurate count could result in Nevada gaining a fifth congressional seat, which would help protect our state’s interests nationally.

Horsford launched a census task force in the 55-member Congressional Black Caucus, whose efforts will include holding the White House accountable for an accurate count and developing a “toolkit” for Congress to utilize its resources to encourage census participation.

It’s also necessary to combat nakedly racist efforts by the White House to undercount minority communities and intimidate members of those communities from participating in the census.

Although the Trump administration reluctantly dropped an abusive question on citizenship after losing a Supreme Court ruling, the White House slashed the number of Census Bureau offices nationwide from 400 to 240 and eliminated half of its 12 regional offices. Clearly, the administration is rationing resources for the census to force an outcome it wants — undercounting in cities with large minority communities, on Native American reservations and other hard-to-count areas to reduce their federal resources and weaken their representation.

Meanwhile, President Donald Trump’s stream of discriminatory and anti-immigrant rhetoric and policies make members of minority communities justifiably fearful of responding to any government agencies.

That’s not good for Nevada. Neither is the fact that the census will mostly be conducted online, which could result in an undercount of populations without adequate internet connectivity. That’s an issue not only in rural portions of Nevada but also groups of people who can’t afford internet service and may not be aware of alternative ways of taking part in the census.

Some communities were undercounted in previous censuses conducted with the best of intentions. This makes the Trump administration’s efforts to manipulate the count especially distressing.

But the good news is that census postcards aren’t scheduled to go out until March, so there’s time to encourage participation, ease fears and work to thwart the White House from gaming the count. For Southern Nevada, another upside is that our congressional and state leaders are tracking in the right direction on the issue.

That includes Sisolak, who displayed commendable leadership by establishing Nevada’s Complete Count Committee for the census. Comprising state, city, tribal and community leaders, the 10-member committee’s tasks include developing educational, outreach and promotional programming, along with addressing funding needs.

As the makeup of the committee suggests, success on the census will require a coordinated effort from Washington to Carson City, down to the neighborhood level.

“Rather than just relying on the (Census Bureau) to get this done, we’re going to need more community organizations,” Horsford said.

That’s where Nevada — and especially Clark County — can shine. As we showed during the past two elections, when we did a laudable job of driving voter turnout, we know how to energize and mobilize residents around our state’s interests.

The strategy that worked in drawing voters to the polls included awareness campaigns, public rallies and door-to-door groundwork by community activist organizations, labor unions, governmental officials and others. These efforts paid off in a healthy turnout.

Now, with congressional leadership working in tandem, that same approach is needed to reach residents, inform them about how to participate, address their concerns, answer their questions and encourage them to participate.

So let’s roll up our sleeves, Nevada. We’ve got a lot of work to do for our state. The results will be worth it.