Fifty-six House Democrats on Monday signed a letter demanding Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross address what they call “glaring contradictions” in his rationale for adding a controversial citizenship question to the census.
Ross originally said he added the question, which will ask census-takers to list their citizenship, at the request of the Justice Department. But Ross filed a memo last month revealing the question’s inclusion was his idea, according to a Washington Post report.
The letter by House Democrats, led by Reps. Jimmy Gomez (D-Calif.), Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.) and Judy Chu (D-Calif.), demands that Ross explain why he originally told Congress the Justice Department “initiated the request” during congressional testimony when his comments in the recent memo suggest that is untrue.
“We remain deeply concerned that a citizenship question will lead to an inaccurate count and have detrimental consequences for our country,” the letter states. “With so much at stake, we must be able to obtain truthful information from the Commerce Department about how this decision was made.”
