NWLC joined over 150 other grassroots, advocacy, labor, legal services, and other organizations and signed on to an amicus (“friends of the court”) brief on June 18, 2018 in the litigation brought by the State of New York against the U.S. Department of Commerce challenging the inclusion of an unnecessary and intrusive citizenship question in the 2020 Census. The brief stated that:  “A fair and accurate 2020 census is a critical civil rights issue. Not only is the constitutionally mandated census central to apportioning political power at every level of government, but the data collected also influence the annual allocation of more than $800 billion in federal money, along with countless policy and investment decisions by government agencies, nonprofit organizations, and private enterprise.”  The brief notes that the Census Bureau itself has long opposed adding a citizenship question precisely because it would lead to an undercount, which would “impact hard-to-count populations disproportionately.”  The State of New York was joined by 17 states, Washington D.C., and nine cities, four counties, and the bipartisan U.S. Conference of Mayors in challenging the late addition of a citizenship question, which Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross agreed to add on March 26 in response to a December 2017 request of the Justice Department.