Republican lawmakers want Arizona to conduct its own census in 2030 to count only U.S. citizens

Republican state lawmakers are moving to have Arizona conduct its own census in 2030 to count only those who are citizens.

And Sen. Jake Hoffman (R-Queen Creek) acknowledged at least part of the reason he is pushing it is political: He believes it will allow the state to draw up legislative districts in a way that will mean more power for Republicans and less for Democrats.

Several Democratic lawmakers say a second census will lead to confusion, inaccuracy and even a fear by families from "mixed status'' households, from being willing to answer questions from people who show up at their doors. But Hoffman, who pushed the measure through the Republican-controlled Senate on Tuesday, said it's a simple matter of accuracy.

Consider, Hoffman said, if he went to Los Angeles to see a football game.

"I'm not a citizen, I'm not a resident of California, nor would I ever expect to be counted in their population,'' he said. "Similarly, the 20-plus million illegal aliens who invaded this country, ... they are also not citizens. They should be deported and sent back.''

Pew Research Center said the number of undocumented immigrants hit a peak of 14 million in 2023 but predicted a decrease in 2025. And the Migration Policy Institute's own 2023 estimate put the figure at 307,000 for Arizona.

More to the point of his SCR 1031, their presence would not be taken into account when dividing up the state into its 30 legislative districts.

By law, the Independent Redistricting Committee is legally required to create districts of approximately equal population. And it uses figures from the decennial count by the U.S. Census Bureau.

President Trump during his first term sought to have a citizenship question included in that count. But his plan was sidelined when the U.S. Supreme Court concluded that Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross lied about why he wanted that information.

So the census was conducted without the question. And both congressional and legislative lines were drawn with the full population, citizen, permanent resident or undocumented — or at least what the agency reported.

Howard Fischer

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Capitol Media Services

Nothing in Hoffman's bill would affect how many more seats Arizona gets in the U.S. House, with that still determined by official Census Bureau numbers. There are currently nine representatives from the state; preliminary estimates say the state will pick up at least one more after 2030.

But what a citizen-only count would do is affect how the 30 districts in Arizona — a number set in the Arizona Constitution — are drawn up. It would mean that areas with a large population of non-citizens, here legally or not, would have to be redrawn to be geographically larger to take in more residents.

And that would have the effect of making remaining districts composed largely of citizens geographically smaller, a move that Hoffman believes would mean more opportunities to elect Republicans.

Even small changes could make a difference.

The GOP does have an edge in both chambers, but their margins are not large: 17 of 30 senators are Republican, while the House is 33-27 Republican.

Those margins, however, have been closer in the past. Democrats controlled the Senate for two years in the 1990s. A subsequent Senate was split 15-15 in the 2000 election. The House, by contrast, has not been run by Democrats since 1964.

Hoffman said it's no surprise that Democrats are opposed to his plan.

"They like when illegal aliens are included for the purpose of apportionment,'' he said. "It gives them undue representation that they are otherwise are not owed if we were only counting U.S. citizens.''

But Senate Minority Leader Priya Sundareshan (D-Tucson) said it is the Republicans who are playing politics. She said the Census Bureau already is doing the work.

"I can't believe we want to waste millions of dollars in this state just so you can have your own count that's separate from that already conducted by the federal government so that you can draw legislative districts differently and stack them the way you'd want,'' Sundareshan said, with one estimate putting the price tag at $50 million.

Sen. Analise Ortiz (D-Phoenix) said there's a more practical problem: accuracy. Ortiz says that when the U.S. Census Bureau considered adding a citizenship question to the 2020 count, a report found voluntary self-response would have decreased overall by 2%, with an 8% drop among mixed-status families. Doing that in Arizona, Ortiz said, means the citizens in those households are going to be undercounted "out of fear.''

"This is nothing more than a Republican driven and funded door-to-door 'show me your papers' campaign,'' she said. "This language would allow the Legislature to designate any untrained, unqualified person to go door-to-door, demanding proof that someone is a citizen. What could go wrong?”

Hoffman's measure is crafted in a way so that it could not be vetoed by Gov. Katie Hobbs who, less than a week ago, quashed another GOP measure requiring hospitals that accept Medicaid payments to ask patients their immigration status. Instead, SCR 1031 would go on the November ballot if it is approved by the Republican-controlled House.