By The Editors

After nearly a month of wrangling, on Thursday the U.S. Senate shelved an eleventh-hour attempt to add a new question—about citizenship and immigration status—to next year’s Census population survey. By a 60 to 39 vote, the Upper Chamber approved ending debate on an amendment that would have required Census takers to ask survey respondents whether they were U.S. citizens.

Leaders of civil rights organizations and other progressive groups, which had vigorously opposed the measure, cheered its effective defeat.

The amendment was proposed early last month by Senators David Vitter (R-LA) and Robert Bennett (R-UT).   They had claimed that the absence of a question about citizenship would boost the congressional representation of states with high numbers of illegal immigrants and penalize those with a lesser number. If approved, the Vitter-Bennett proviso would have required the Census Bureau to replace millions upon millions of questionnaire forms it has prepared for next year’s constitutionally-mandated survey – at a cost of hundreds of millions of dollars.

Opponents, such as Kristen Clarke, co-director of LDF’s Political Participation, said that the amendment would likely have had “a predictable and clear chilling effect” on the Census participation of millions, including large numbers of African Americans and Latino Americans.

Among other things, Census data is used to reapportion federal and state legislative districts and annually allot some $400 billion in federal funds to state, local and tribal governments, and to help make decisions about the distribution of services to local communities.