Trump ordered “new” census. Lutnick says it’s up to Congress

Lutnick’s remarks come amid a Republican-led campaign to use census data to redraw congressional voting maps in Texas and other states ahead of next year’s midterm election in an attempt to maintain GOP control of the House of Representatives.

Amid this rare mid-decade redistricting push, Trump, Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and some GOP lawmakers in Congress have floated conducting a census before the next scheduled count in 2030 so that new results can be used to redistribute House seats among the states and redraw maps of congressional voting districts — all before the 2026 election.

Lutnick acknowledged legal hurdles facing any census before 2030

Given the short timeline, census experts have dismissed the idea of a 2025 or 2026 census as practically impossible. It usually takes the bureau more than a decade to prepare a count, and planning for the upcoming 2030 census began six years ago.

Lutnick’s comments on Tuesday mark the first known acknowledgement by a top Trump administration official of the potential legal hurdles facing any attempt to carry out the president’s census call.

The remarks also appear to reference Trump’s Aug. 7 social media post calling for the U.S. census to, for the first time in the country’s history, exclude people without legal status.

The 14th Amendment requires the “whole number of persons in each state” to be counted in the 2030 census apportionment numbers, which are set to be used to determine each state’s new share of House seats and Electoral College votes.

Some Republicans are still pushing for a census before the 2026 midterms

Article I of the Constitution gives Congress the authority to carry out a national tally “in such Manner as they shall by Law direct.” In Title 13 of the U.S. Code, Congress directed the commerce secretary to follow a once-a-decade census schedule. That federal law also allows for a mid-decade census in 2025, but it can’t be used to redistribute House seats and a legal deadline to prepare for such a count has already passed.

Still, Trump said in the social media post that he instructed the Commerce Department to “immediately begin work” on a “new” census that excludes people living in the states without legal status. Trump has not clarified whether his post was referring to the 2030 census or an earlier one.

Hours after Trump’s census call, the Commerce Department said in a statement that the Census Bureau “will immediately adopt modern technology tools for use in the Census to better understand our robust Census data” and “accurately analyze the data to reflect the number of legal residents in the United States.”

Trump has publicly backed a proposal by Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia to change current federal law and allow for a new census, redistribution of House seats and a new round of congressional redistricting before the 2026 midterm election.

Greene’s bill also calls for excluding not only people without legal status, but all people living in the states without U.S. citizenship, such as green card holders, from what the 14th Amendment requires to be the “whole number of persons in each state.”

Last week, Republican Rep. Randy Fine of Florida, introduced a similar proposal. Together, both bills currently have less than a handful of sponsors and are stuck in committee.

On Monday, another Republican official from Florida weighed in on the census with a letter to Lutnick referencing Trump’s “recent census directive” by social media post.

Florida’s state Attorney General James Uthmeier — a former Trump administration official who helped come up with a failed plan to exclude people without legal status from the 2020 census apportionment numbers — made two proposals.

Uthmeier suggested states get new shares of House seats before the 2026 midterm election based on a census “recount” in areas of states that the Census Bureau estimates it over- or undercounted in 2020. He also proposed “correcting” the census data used to guide trillions in federal funding for public services in communities with those miscounting estimates. The bureau’s researchers and an internal watchdog have raised concerns about the usability of those estimates.

“We are energized by President Trump’s leadership,” Uthmeier wrote, “and we look forward to hearing from you and working together to resolve these issues.”

Edited by Megan Pratz