Wonderful news! Now we will be able to draw districts with Citizen Voting Age Population.
The Constitution says persons, not citizens.
To clear up some of the confusion on these points in this thread (since I studied this issue in my election law class in law school):
No legal analyst seriously questions the fact that the Constitution requires the use of total population, not citizen population or voter eligible population, for the apportionment of house seats
between states. This won't change no matter what questions are added to the census.
There's a slightly different question of what measure of population, if any, the Constitution requires for the intrastate drawing of districts, both U.S. congressional districts and state legislative districts. SCOTUS back in 1964 announced the "One person, one vote" test in Reynolds v. Sims, holding that the 14th Amendment requires states to draw legislative districts with essentially equal populations. Since then, pretty much everyone always assumed that this meant equal population based on total population as per the census, and every state currently draws its legislative districts according to total population.
In 2016 SCOTUS heard a case in which a conservative group sued the Texas legislature arguing that the 14th Amendment
requires states to use voter-eligible population rather than total population. Their argument was that drawing districts based on total population dilute certain voter's votes relative to districts with large numbers of non-citizens, minors, and ineligible felons. The Texas legislature for its part was not attempting to draw a map based on voter-eligible population but argued for reserving its right to do so in the future. SCOTUS ruled in
Evenwel v. Abbot that the Constitution certainly didn't
require the use of voter-eligible population. The Court did not actually reach the question of whether, as most scholars have assumed, "one person, one vote" mandates the use of total population. So technically SCOTUS has not yet shut the door on states using voter-eligible or citizen population in their districting should a state attempt to do so in the future.
So yes, there's technically an unsettled question of whether or not state legislatures can draw districts by disregarding non-citizens when equalizing population. But Krazen is flat wrong that adding this question to the U.S. census somehow facilitates that. If and when that question is before the Court, the Court will decide that question through Constitutional interpretation.
