Attorney General Kwame Raoul, as part of a coalition of 15 states, along with several counties, cities, and the U.S. Conference of Mayors today opposed the state of Alabama’s attempt to advance a discriminatory agenda and tilt the power within Congress and the Electoral College by refusing to count every individual in the 2020 census. While the U.S. Department of Commerce and the U.S. Census Bureau, as well as their respective leaders, have been named as defendants in the case, Illinois moved to intervene as a defendant in the federal case of “Alabama v. U.S. Department of Commerce,” in the Northern District of Alabama, to ensure the case is properly defended and that every resident is counted. Raoul and the coalition are seeking to intervene as defendants in the lawsuit in an effort to protect the constitutional mandate that requires the U.S. Census Bureau to count every resident of the United States, as well as defend the century-old Census Bureau precedent of counting “all persons” in the United States for the purposes of apportionment, regardless of immigration status. In May 2018, the state of Alabama and an Alabama congressman filed a lawsuit challenging the U.S. Census Bureau’s long-standing policy of including all individuals, including non-citizens, in the census.