Alex Padilla in Our Time Is Now: Power

On Technology: Census "citizenship question" affects CA's voice in congress

California secretary of state Alex Padilla helped lead his state's lawsuit, along with state attorney general Xavier Becerra. They argued that the citizenship question was intended to artificially suppress the count, and the consequences for California would be dire. In an interview with NPR, Secretary Padilla laid out the potential effect: "the whole point of the census is to get an accurate count of the entire nation's population for a couple important reasons. Yes, it does determine federal funding for the next decade--transportation dollars, education dollars, housing dollars, and so forth. But more fundamentally, it is the census numbers that drive the reapportionment process and the redistricting. So we're literally talking about California's voice in congress, and the level of representation being at stake."