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U.S. Census will have new identity options in 2030

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On the next U.S. census and future federal government forms, the list of checkboxes for a person’s race and ethnicity is officially getting longer.

The Biden administration has approved proposals for a new response option for “Middle Eastern or North African” and a “Hispanic or Latino” box that appears under a reformatted question that asks: “What is your race and/or ethnicity?”
Going forward, participants in federal surveys will be presented with at least seven “race and/or ethnicity” categories, along with instructions that say: “Select all that apply.”

After years of research and discussion by federal officials for a complicated review process that goes back to 2014, the decision was announced Thursday in a Federal Register notice, which was made available for public inspection before its official publication.

Officials at the White House’s Office of Management and Budget revived these Obama-era proposals after they were shelved by the Trump administration. Supporters of these changes say they could help the racial and ethnic data used to redraw maps of voting districts, enforce civil rights protections and guide policymaking and research better reflect people’s identities today.

Most people living in the U.S. are not expected to see the changes on the census until forms for the next once-a-decade head count of the country’s residents are distributed in 2030.

But a sea change is coming as federal agencies — plus many state and local governments and private institutions participating in federal programs — figure out how to update their forms and databases in order to meet the U.S. government’s new statistical standards.

Federal agencies that release data about race and ethnicity are required to each turn in a public action plan to OMB by late September 2025 and get all of their surveys and statistics in line with the new requirements by late March 2029.

The “White” definition has changed, and “Latino” is now a “race and/or ethnicity”

OMB’s decision to change its statistical standards on race and ethnicity for the first time in more than a quarter-century also marks a major shift in the U.S. government’s definition of “White,” which no longer includes people who identify with Middle Eastern or North African groups such as Egyptian, Iranian, Iraqi, Israeli, Jordanian, Kurdish, Lebanese, Moroccan, Palestinian, Syrian and Yemeni.

That move sets up “Middle Eastern or North African” as the first completely new racial or ethnic category to be required on federal government forms since officials first issued in 1977 standards on racial and ethnic data that the Census Bureau and other federal agencies must follow.

For more than three decades, advocates for Arab Americans and other MENA groups have campaigned for their own checkbox on the U.S. census and other government forms, and recent research suggests that many people of MENA descent do not see themselves as white, a category that the federal government previously considered to include people with “origins in any of the original peoples of Europe, the Middle East, or North Africa.”

Studies by the bureau show that the government’s previous standards have also been out of step with many Latinos. Those standards required asking about a person’s Hispanic or Latino identity — which the federal government considers to be an ethnicity that can be any race — before asking about their racial identity.

Combining a question about Hispanic origins with a question about race into one question, while allowing people to check as many boxes as they want, is likely to lower the share of Latinos who mark the “Some other race” category on census forms,the bureau’s research from 2015 suggests.

Recent research, however, suggests it’s not clear how someone who identifies as Afro Latino is likely to respond to a combined race-ethnicity question. According to the Federal Register notice, about half of participants in a recent study for OMB selected only the “Hispanic or Latino” box when presented with a combined question after previously selecting both the Latino and Black categories.

This new question format, along with the addition of a “Middle Eastern or North African” box, could also decrease the number of people who mark the “White” box.
Other changes coming to federal forms

Among the other proposals OMB has greenlit is a general requirement for federal agencies to ask for detailed responses about people’s identities beyond the seven minimum racial and ethnic categories. This change, advocates say, will produce more insightful statistics about differences in health care outcomes and socioeconomic disparities within the minimum categories.

OMB has also approved removing from its standards outdated language about allowing “Negro” as a termto describe the “Black” category and “Far East” to describe a geographic region of origin for people of Asian descent, which, according to the U.S. government’s revised definition, now includes individuals “with origins in any of the original peoples of Central or East Asia, Southeast Asia, or South Asia.”

The federal government’s new definitions of the seven minimum racial and ethnic categories list the six largest groups, based on 2020 census results, that the government considers to be part of that category. For example, its definition of “Black or African American” now reads: “Individuals with origins in any of the Black racial groups of Africa, including, for example, African American, Jamaican, Haitian, Nigerian, Ethiopian, and Somali.”

For the standards’ official description for “American Indian or Alaska Native,” OMB is removing a phrase about maintaining “tribal affiliation or community attachment.” The revised definition says: “Individuals with origins in any of the original peoples of North, Central, and South America, including, for example, Navajo Nation, Blackfeet Tribe of the Blackfeet Indian Reservation of Montana, Native Village of Barrow Inupiat Traditional Government, Nome Eskimo Community, Aztec, and Maya.”

OMB decided not to move forward with calls to require agencies to gather data to better understand the descendants of enslaved people originally from Africa, which included suggestions to use “American Descendants of Slavery” or “American Freedman” to describe the group. OMB said in the Federal Register notice that “further research is needed,” adding that there was opposition to this proposal from civil rights groups and others because of concerns over “the difficulty of verifying that identification is accurate, the usefulness or necessity of the data, the exclusion of other groups of historically enslaved people, and the creation of confusion that could make the Black or African American community harder to count.”

A changing conversation about race and ethnicity

OMB says it plans to create a standing committee to formally review these standards at least once a decade going forward. Among the key questions OMB says the committee may review is how to encourage people to select multiple categories when appropriate so that there are complete and accurate estimates about groups such as Afro Latinos.

While the revised standards go into many minute details about how surveys and data tables should be presented, there are many unanswered questions.

It’s not clear, for example, how the federal government will consider people who identify as MENA when monitoring and enforcing civil rights. OMB’s previous guidance, which was rescinded Thursday, used the earlier “White” definition, which included people with roots in the Middle East or North Africa and was not categorized as a “minority race” that would face “disparate impact or discriminatory patterns.” The new standards offer no new guidance about which specific groups the government considers to be a “minority race.”

Still, changes to how the government asks about people’s identities could also reset the national conversation about race and ethnicity.

Some critics of using one question to ask about both a person’s race and ethnicity, including researchers behind a campaign called “Latino Is Not A Race,” have raised concerns about blurring the distinctions between the two concepts.

The introduction of a “Middle Eastern or North African” category may reopen unresolved questions and tensions over the fact that the Middle East and North Africa are regions with no universally agreed-upon borders and with transnational groups.

OMB received public feedback in support of including Armenian, Somali and Sudanese among MENA groups, but it said in its Federal Register notice that the Census Bureau’s research has found that most people who identify with those groups did not select a MENA checkbox when presented with one. “Additional research is needed on these groups to monitor their preferred identification,” OMB added in the notice. Many advocates of a MENA category, including the Arab American Institute, have criticized the bureau’s previous researchfor not specifically testing “Middle Eastern or North African” as an ethnic category whose members can be of any race.

OMB announced the last major changes to its standards in 1997, when it approved allowing survey participants to report more than one race and splitting the “Asian or Pacific Islander” category into “Asian” and “Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander,” which OMB has now shortened by removing the word “Other.”

Edited by Benjamin Swasey Copyright 2024 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

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Poll: Support for Missouri abortion rights amendment growing

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A proposed constitutional amendment legalizing abortion in Missouri received support from more than half of respondents in a new poll from St. Louis University and YouGov.That’s a boost from a poll earlier this year, which could mean what’s known as Amendment 3 is in a solid position to pass in November.SLU/YouGov’s poll of 900 likely Missouri voters from Aug. 8-16 found that 52% of respondents would vote for Amendment 3, which would place constitutional protections for abortion up to fetal viability. Thirty-four percent would vote against the measure, while 14% aren’t sure.By comparison, the SLU/YouGov poll from February found that 44% of voters would back the abortion legalization amendment.St. Louis University political science professor Steven Rogers said 32% of Republicans and 53% of independents would vote for the amendment. That’s in addition to nearly 80% of Democratic respondents who would approve the measure. In the previous poll, 24% of Republicans supported the amendment.Rogers noted that neither Amendment 3 nor a separate ballot item raising the state’s minimum wage is helping Democratic candidates. GOP contenders for U.S. Senate, governor, lieutenant governor, treasurer and secretary of state all hold comfortable leads.“We are seeing this kind of crossover voting, a little bit, where there are voters who are basically saying, ‘I am going to the polls and I’m going to support a Republican candidate, but I’m also going to go to the polls and then I’m also going to try to expand abortion access and then raise the minimum wage,’” Rogers said.Republican gubernatorial nominee Mike Kehoe has a 51%-41% lead over Democrat Crystal Quade. And U.S. Sen. Josh Hawley is leading Democrat Lucas Kunce by 53% to 42%. Some GOP candidates for attorney general, secretary of state and treasurer have even larger leads over their Democratic rivals.

Brian Munoz

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St. Louis Public RadioHundreds of demonstrators pack into a parking lot at Planned Parenthood of St. Louis and Southwest Missouri on June 24, 2022, during a demonstration following the Supreme Court’s reversal of a case that guaranteed the constitutional right to an abortion.

One of the biggest challenges for foes of Amendment 3 could be financial.Typically, Missouri ballot initiatives with well-funded and well-organized campaigns have a better chance of passing — especially if the opposition is underfunded and disorganized. Since the end of July, the campaign committee formed to pass Amendment 3 received more than $3 million in donations of $5,000 or more.That money could be used for television advertisements to improve the proposal’s standing further, Rogers said, as well as point out that Missouri’s current abortion ban doesn’t allow the procedure in the case of rape or incest.“Meanwhile, the anti side won’t have those resources to kind of try to make that counter argument as strongly, and they don’t have public opinion as strongly on their side,” Rogers said.There is precedent of a well-funded initiative almost failing due to opposition from socially conservative voters.In 2006, a measure providing constitutional protections for embryonic stem cell research nearly failed — even though a campaign committee aimed at passing it had a commanding financial advantage.Former state Sen. Bob Onder was part of the opposition campaign to that measure. He said earlier this month it is possible to create a similar dynamic in 2024 against Amendment 3, if social conservatives who oppose abortion rights can band together.“This is not about reproductive rights or care for miscarriages or IVF or anything else,” said Onder, the GOP nominee for Missouri’s 3rd Congressional District seat. “Missourians will learn that out-of-state special interests and dark money from out of state is lying to them and they will reject this amendment.”Quade said earlier this month that Missourians of all political ideologies are ready to roll back the state’s abortion ban.“Regardless of political party, we hear from folks who are tired of politicians being in their doctor’s offices,” Quade said. “They want politicians to mind their own business. So this is going to excite folks all across the political spectrum.”

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Democrat Mark Osmack makes his case for Missouri treasurer

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Mark Osmack has been out of the electoral fray for awhile, but he never completely abandoned his passion for Missouri politics.Osmack, a Valley Park native and U.S. Army veteran, previously ran for Missouri’s 2nd Congressional District seat and for state Senate. Now he’s the Democratic nominee for state treasurer after receiving a phone call from Missouri Democratic Party Chairman Russ Carnahan asking him to run.“There’s a lot of decision making and processing and evaluation that goes into it, which is something I am very passionate and interested in,” Osmack said this week on an episode of Politically Speaking.Osmack is squaring off against state Treasurer Vivek Malek, who was able to easily win a crowded GOP primary against several veteran lawmakers including House Budget Chairman Cody Smith and state Sen. Andrew Koenig.While Malek was able to attract big donations to his political action committee and pour his own money into the campaign, Osmack isn’t worried that he won’t be able to compete in November. Since Malek was appointed to his post, Osmack contends he hasn’t proven that he’s a formidable opponent in a general election.“His actions and his decision making so far in his roughly two year tenure in that office have been questionable,” Osmack said.Among other things, Osmack was critical of Malek for placing unclaimed property notices on video gaming machines which are usually found in gas stations or convenience stores. The legality of the machines has been questioned for some time.As Malek explained on his own episode of Politically Speaking, he wanted to make sure the unclaimed property program was as widely advertised as possible. But he acknowledged it was a mistake to put the decals close to the machines and ultimately decided to remove them.Osmack said: “This doesn’t even pass the common sense sniff test of, ‘Hey, should I put state stickers claiming you might have a billion dollars on a gambling machine that is not registered with the state of Missouri?’ If we’re gonna give kudos for him acknowledging the wrong thing, it never should have been done in the first place.”Osmack’s platform includes supporting programs providing school meals using Missouri agriculture products and making child care more accessible for the working class.He said the fact that Missouri has such a large surplus shows that it’s possible to create programs to make child care within reach for parents.“It is quite audacious for [Republicans] to brag about $8 billion, with a B, dollars in state surplus, while we offer next to no social services to include pre-K, daycare, or child care,” Osmack said.Here’s are some other topics Osmack discussed on the show:How he would handle managing the state’s pension systems and approving low-income housing tax credits. The state treasurer’s office is on boards overseeing both of those programs.Malek’s decision to cut off investments from Chinese companies. Osmack said that Missouri needs to be cautious about abandoning China as a business partner, especially since they’re a major consumer of the state’s agriculture products. “There’s a way to make this work where we are not supporting communist nations to the detriment of the United States or our allies, while also maintaining strong economic ties that benefit Missouri farmers,” he said.What it was like to witness the skirmish at the Missouri State Fair between U.S. Sen. Josh Hawley and Democratic challenger Lucas Kunce.Whether Kunce can get the support of influential groups like the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, which often channels money and staff to states with competitive Senate elections.

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As Illinois receives praise for its cannabis equity efforts, stakeholders work on system’s flaws

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Medical marijuana patients can now purchase cannabis grown by small businesses as part of their allotment, Illinois’ top cannabis regulator said, but smaller, newly licensed cannabis growers are still seeking greater access to the state’s medical marijuana customers.Illinois legalized medicinal marijuana beginning in 2014, then legalized it for recreational use in 2020. While the 2020 law legalized cannabis use for any adult age 21 or older, it did not expand licensing for medical dispensaries.Patients can purchase marijuana as part of the medical cannabis program at dual-purpose dispensaries, which are licensed to serve both medical and recreational customers. But dual-purpose dispensaries are greatly outnumbered by dispensaries only licensed to sell recreationally, and there are no medical-only dispensaries in the state.As another part of the adult-use legalization law, lawmakers created a “craft grow” license category that was designed to give more opportunities to Illinoisans hoping to legally grow and sell marijuana. The smaller-scale grow operations were part of the 2020 law’s efforts to diversify the cannabis industry in Illinois.Prior to that, all cultivation centers in Illinois were large-scale operations dominated by large multi-state operators. The existing cultivators, mostly in operation since 2014, were allowed to grow recreational cannabis beginning in 2019.Until recently, dual-purpose dispensaries have been unsure as to whether craft-grown products, made by social equity licensees — those who have lived in a disproportionately impacted area or have been historically impacted by the war on drugs — can be sold medicinally as part of a patient’s medical allotment.Erin Johnson, the state’s cannabis regulation oversight officer, told Capitol News Illinois last month that her office has “been telling dispensaries, as they have been asking us” they can now sell craft-grown products to medical patients.“There was just a track and trace issue on our end, but never anything statutorily,” she said.

Dilpreet Raju

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Capitol News IllinoisThe graphic shows how cannabis grown in Illinois gets from cultivation centers to customers.

No notice has been posted, but Johnson’s verbal guidance comes almost two years after the first craft grow business went online in Illinois.It allows roughly 150,000 medical patients, who dispensary owners say are the most consistent purchasers of marijuana, to buy products made by social equity businesses without paying recreational taxes. However — even as more dispensaries open — the number available to medical patients has not increased since 2018, something the Cannabis Regulation Oversight Office “desperately” wants to see changed. Johnson said Illinois is a limited license state, meaning “there are caps on everything” to help control the relatively new market.Berwyn Thompkins, who operates two cannabis businesses, said the rules limited options for patients and small businesses.“It’s about access,” Thompkins said. “Why wouldn’t we want all the patients — which the (adult-use) program was initially built around — why wouldn’t we want them to have access? They should have access to any dispensary.”Customers with a medical marijuana card pay a 1% tax on all marijuana products, whereas recreational customers pay retail taxes between roughly 20 and 40% on a given cannabis product, when accounting for local taxes.While Illinois has received praise for its equity-focused cannabis law, including through an independent study that showed more people of color own cannabis licenses than in any other state, some industry operators say they’ve experienced many unnecessary hurdles getting their businesses up and running.The state, in fact, announced last month that it had opened its 100th social equity dispensary.But Steve Olson, purchasing manager at a pair of dispensaries (including one dual-purpose dispensary) near Rockford, said small specialty license holders have been left in the lurch since the first craft grower opened in October 2022.“You would think that this would be something they’re (the government) trying to help out these social equity companies with, but they’re putting handcuffs on them in so many different spots,” he said. “One of them being this medical thing.”Olson said he contacted state agencies, including the Department of Financial and Professional Regulation, months ago about whether craft products can be sold to medical patients at their retail tax rate, but only heard one response: “They all say it was an oversight.”This potentially hurt social equity companies because they sell wholesale to dispensaries and may have been missing out on a consistent customer base through those medical dispensaries.Olson said the state’s attempts to provide licensees with a path to a successful business over the years, such as with corrective lotteries that granted more social equity licenses, have come up short.“It’s like they almost set up the social equity thing to fail so the big guys could come in and swoop up all these licenses,” Olson said. “I hate to feel like that but, if you look at it, it’s pretty black and white.”Olson said craft companies benefit from any type of retail sale.“If we sell it to medical patients or not, it’s a matter of, ‘Are we collecting the proper taxes?’ That’s all it is,” he said.State revenue from cannabis taxes, licensing costs and other fees goes into the Cannabis Regulation Fund, which is used to fund a host of programs, including cannabis offense expungement, the general revenue fund, and the R3 campaign aiming to uplift disinvested communities.For fiscal year 2024, nearly $256 million was paid out from Cannabis Regulation Fund for related initiatives, which includes almost $89 million transferred to the state’s general revenue fund and more than $20 million distributed to local governments, according to the Illinois Department of Revenue.Medical access still limitedThe state’s 55 medical dispensaries that predate the 2020 legalization law, mostly owned by publicly traded multistate operators that had been operating in Illinois since 2014 under the state’s medical marijuana program, were automatically granted a right to licenses to sell recreationally in January 2020. That gave them a dual-purpose license that no new entrants into the market can receive under current law.Since expanding their clientele in 2020, Illinois dispensaries have sold more than $6 billion worth of cannabis products through recreational transactions alone.Nearly two-thirds of dispensaries licensed to sell to medical patients are in the northeast counties of Cook, DuPage, Kane, Lake and Will. Dual-purpose dispensaries only represent about 20 percent of the state’s dispensaries.While the state began offering recreational dispensary licenses since the adult-use legalization law passed, it has not granted a new medical dispensary license since 2018. That has allowed the established players to continue to corner the market on the state’s nearly 150,000 medical marijuana patients.But social equity licensees and advocates say there are more ways to level the playing field, including expanding access to medical sales.Johnson, who became the state’s top cannabis regulator in late 2022, expressed hope for movement during the fall veto session on House Bill 2911, which would expand medical access to all Illinois dispensaries.“We would like every single dispensary in Illinois to be able to serve medical patients,” Johnson said. “It’s something that medical patients have been asking for, for years.”Johnson said the bill would benefit patients and small businesses.“It’s something we desperately want to happen as a state system, because we want to make sure that medical patients are able to easily access what they need,” she said. “We also think it’s good for our social equity dispensaries, as they’re opening, to be able to serve medical patients.”Rep. Bob Morgan, D-Deerfield, who was the first statewide project coordinator for Illinois’ medical cannabis program prior to joining the legislature, wrote in an email to Capitol News Illinois that the state needs to be doing more for its patients.“Illinois is failing the state’s 150,000 medical cannabis patients with debilitating conditions. Too many are still denied the patient protections they deserve, including access to their medicine,” Morgan wrote, adding he would continue to work with stakeholders on further legislation.Capitol News Illinois is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news service covering state government. It is distributed to hundreds of newspapers, radio and TV stations statewide. It is funded primarily by the Illinois Press Foundation and the Robert R. McCormick Foundation, along with major contributions from the Illinois Broadcasters Foundation and Southern Illinois Editorial Association.

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