No, it's all Democrats in favor of things that they know will net them more Democrat votes, and Republicans against them, and vice versa, of course. Why are the Democrats upset about the census not counting "migrants" and going to court to block attempts to make the census only count citizens? Well, you could try to derive an answer from first principles... or you could just count votes, and come to the correct answer much more quickly.
Don't be so silly as to believe their spin about "getting money out of the election"; such reforms are not hypothetical things that may happen in the future, reforms have been passed are in effect, and, lo, money is still in politics.
> Why are the Democrats upset about the census not counting "migrants" and going to court to block attempts to make the census only count citizens?
You are a bit off on that.
The census is supposed to count everyone resident in the US, regardless of citizenship status or legality of their presence here. It's been that way since the Census Act of 1790. (And it does not count US citizens who are not resident in the US, except for Federal employees and their dependents).
The issue with adding a question about citizenship is that it might discourage some people from responding to the census, reducing the accuracy of the count. The Census Bureau estimates that about 6.5 million people will not respond if the question is included.
There are legitimate reasons for the government to want to know how many citizens are resident in the country, and how they are distributed, but they already have that data from the American Community Survey which does include a citizenship question (in fact, I believe, the same question they are trying to add to the census).
The experts at the Census Bureau unanimously recommended not including the question (as did six former directors of the Bureau, both Republican and Democrat). The Commerce Secretary overruled them, claiming that the Justice Department said it wanted the question added to somehow better enforce the Voting Rights Act. (Emails between the Secretary and the DoJ that were introduced in one of the trials over this show that this is not true--the DoJ told him that the question was unnecessary).
Here's a recent article that covers most of this [1].
This is a non sequitur response to an informed and interesting comment, which 'tzs clearly took pains to compose and which addresses in detail the claim you made above. You'd have been better off not commenting at all than writing this.
I disagree. tzs keeps trying to pin me down to disagreeing with "Democrats want the vote to be solid and the evilnasty Republicans keep stopping them", but the point I want to make is that the theory that parties act in their interest is far more explanatory than the theory that the parties act in accordance with their stated principles. (Stated principles are of some modest help in determining why the parties are made up of the specific interests they are, but it's far from determinative.) Do the Democrats believe that any of the measures that tzs defends is going to increase Republican voting, and they are pursuing them even so? That would be relevant. Give me some evidence of that and I'll admit at the very least a rare admission against interest, and at most that I'm wrong about this. But I don't believe it to be true. I'm pretty sure they think that if they get those things, they'll get more Democrat votes.
How exactly Democrats defend their position for policies that will result in Democratic voting power isn't that relevant for my point.
> I disagree. tzs keeps trying to pin me down [...]
Excuse me? I just went through 90 days of your comment history, and as far as I can see my comment above in this thread is the only time in there (before this comment, of course) that I have responded to one of your comments. I don't see how you can claim "keeps trying to pin me down" from that.
First, that is nothing at all like what 'tzs said, and it's rude to suggest otherwise. Second, this new argument essentially shuts down the whole discussion. What you're saying is that there's no explanation about census policy that can override your somehow-infallible observation that this is all a political sideshow. Why bother participating in the discussion at all, then? You've already made that point. Did you need to make it 3 times?
I have a problem with the pattern on HN of someone taking the time to make an informed comment, and then others trying to shut that person down with handwaving and shouting. If you want to rebut 'tzs, do the legwork and rebut him.
Don't be so silly as to believe their spin about "getting money out of the election"; such reforms are not hypothetical things that may happen in the future, reforms have been passed are in effect, and, lo, money is still in politics.