Equal Representation Act

Key Points

• This bill would add a citizenship question to the 2030 Census and all future censuses. Every person in a household would need to indicate whether they are a U.S. citizen, a U.S. national, a lawful resident alien, or an unlawful resident alien.
• The bill would change how House seats are divided among states. Instead of counting all people living in a state, only U.S. citizens would be counted when deciding how many representatives each state gets.
• The Census Bureau would have to publish a public report within 120 days after each census is completed, showing how many people in each state fall into each of the four citizenship categories.
• Because Electoral College votes are tied to the number of House seats, this change would shift political power away from states with large non-citizen populations and toward states with higher shares of citizens. This could reshape presidential elections.
• The bill includes a severability clause, meaning if courts strike down one part, the rest of the law would still stand. This matters because the bill faces likely constitutional challenges, since the 14th Amendment refers to counting 'whole number of persons.'