DOJ says it's trying to find ways to include citizenship question on 2020 census

[Mrs. Overall]

Source: The Hill

A lawyer with the Department of Justice said Wednesday that agency officials have been ordered to determine whether there is a way the administration can include a citizenship question on the 2020 census, hours after a tweet from President Trump raised confusion over the status of the question.

Joseph Hunt, an assistant attorney general with DOJ’s civil division, said Wednesday that the department has been “instructed to examine whether there is a path forward, consistent with the Supreme Court's decision, that would allow us to include the citizenship question on the census.”

“We think there may be a legally available path under the Supreme Court's decision. We're examining that, looking at near-term options to see whether that's viable and possible,” Hunt said, according to a transcript of a teleconference held in federal court in Maryland.

The DOJ official said that the agency currently plans to file a motion in the Supreme Court that would “govern further proceedings in order to simplify and expedite the remaining litigation and provide clarity to the process going forward.”

Read more: https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/451639-doj-ordered-to-find-ways-to-include-citizenship-question-on-2020

[Iliyah]

1. This is abuse of power, plain and simple.

It needs to stop.

[Kablooie]

3. You can bet the census question will be on the printed forms.

And it will be too late do do anything about it.
All on the president's orders since there's nothing anyone can do about it.

[mobeau69]

20. DOJ lawyers told judge today they are being printed w/o the question.

This will be settled once and for all Friday afternoon. The DOJ asked for delay until Monday due to the holiday but the judge said no way. Said she wanted this finished and in her hands by 2 pm Friday.

see p.12 https://drive.google.com/file/d/1M3Y6vj3QlQpSdlYcCdq3BkbnnWIrEPlf/view

[Kablooie]

22. Trump won't mind throwing a few DOJ lawyers under the bus.

I still don't trust them and won't be surprised if next week we find they have the census question on them.

[mobeau69]

23. Yeah, I was thinking they could try using an addendum to be included as part of the census or

smoother similar bullshit move.

I don't think he cares whether he wins in court or not. He now has another issue, one way of the other, to use to fire up his deplorable base for the GE.

[Marthe48]

4. stop it

just stop. This is a country, not a business. Stop trying to take it over. Stop ignoring the rules. Stop ignoring the laws. Just stop it.

[durablend]

7. And?

Stop ignoring the rules. Stop ignoring the laws.

Again, who's going to stop him? All I hear is crickets.

[Marthe48]

12. everyone in government better stop it

if trump destroys our government, all of the a**holes who let him do it are going to be out of a job or worse. He didn't see kim just to play kissie face.

[John Fante]

29. A federal judge just did.

[muriel_volestrangler]

5. Government by tantrum. Baby wants, baby gets.

Baby hasn't yet learn to read, but has been made President of the United States by an unholy alliance of ratfuckers, Russian agents, fundamentalists and millions of Republican-voting idiots who are more interested in hating Others than in getting a competent government.

[Claritie Pixie]

6. The SC said NO. WTF.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

15. Are you sure?

It's extremely likely that the citizenship question will appear on the 2020 census -- as intended.

I fear @JoshuaMatz8 is right: the “victory” for excluding the citizenship question from the 2020 census may well be short-lived, and the praise for how CJ Roberts managed the case seems premature. Read this razor-sharp dissection of the Chief’s gambit:

Link to tweet

Thoughts on the Chief's Strategy in the Census Case

Joshua Matz // 7/1/19 // Commentary

Over the past few days, I’ve seen a lot of commentary—including from some lawyers whose opinion I respect a great deal—asserting that the Supreme Court’s opinion in Department of Commerce v. New York will prevent a citizenship question from appearing on the 2020 census. Many of these articles and tweets have celebrated the Chief Justice for his bravery, principle, and (long-delayed) unwillingness to accept pretextual reasons for a Trump Administration policy. To hear them tell it, this decision was a huge win.

Like Rick Hasen (here), Steven Mazie (here) [see the tweet below], Mike Dorf (here), and some others, I’m skeptical. Indeed, I think it’s extremely likely that the citizenship question will appear on the 2020 census—and the Chief intended precisely that result. Let me explain why.

Monday-morning quarterbacking the surprise Roberts decision in the census case, I'm increasingly wary. 1/8

Link to tweet

{snip}

A final view is that the Chief wanted the agency to understand the scope and parameters of its own authority on remand—and wanted to define that authority in the broadest possible terms. As I see it, this is by far the most plausible view.

Assuming that is so, we have a clear sense of the Chief’s thoughts on the underlying issue. In the constitutional section of his opinion, he emphasizes the long history of asking demographic questions (including about citizenship) and knocks away any suggestion that the Enumeration Clause prohibits such an inquiry. In the statutory section, he rejects arguments that Secretary Ross violated the Census Act by failing to inform Congress in a timely manner and failing to consider alternative administrative methods of acquiring citizenship data. In the APA section, he concludes that the evidence before Secretary Ross supported the decision to use a citizenship question to obtain accurate citizenship information—thus rejecting powerful arguments that this decision was arbitrary and capricious because it would demonstrably result in a less accurate citizenship count.

The result is a Supreme Court opinion that eliminates nearly every constitutional, statutory, and regulatory objection that has been raised against the citizenship question, and that describes the decision to include this question as reasonable in light of empirical uncertainty about the best way to calculate the total number of citizens.

Ultimately, the Chief’s only complaint is that Ross offered a rationale for this decision that—to borrow a phrase from Scalia—taxes the credulity of the credulous:

{snip}

[Linda Ed]

8. So now

the DOJ is bigger than SCOTUS rulings?

“Barr has done it again: He’s demonstrated there’s no limit to how much sh*t he’s willing to eat — or to dish out and toss at the public and the other branches of government — to please his master,” Tribe posted on Twitter.

“Since his real client isn’t the United States but the Donald, he should bill [Trump],” Tribe added.
Laurence Tribe fifty year Harvard Professor of Law!

This is a lawless and illegitimate president and administration. God help the COMPLICIT GOP in 2020 and beyond.

[Judi Lynn]

11. Laurence Tribe has Barr's number. The orange beast owns him. Must have blackmailed him. n/t

[atreides1]

13. I doubt it

There isn't any need to blackmail someone who is willing to participate in a crime against the people...

[EleanorR]

18. Barr loves the idea of unchecked executive power

He applied for and got the job of AG because he believes trump should be allowed to do as he likes.

[They_Live]

19. Barr is Opus Dei

the end.

[ArizonaLib]

9. I don't understand how the census falls under DOJ responsibility

Did they reorganize the census bureau to fall under the DOJ?

[Eugene]

14. The operating pretext is that DOJ asked Commerce for the change

to aid enforcement of the Voting Rights Act. That lie was so obvious that even Chief Justice Roberts couldn't swallow it.

[onenote]

10. Keep in mind that the victory in the census case was very narrow.

We lost more arguments than we won.

In particular, on the issue of whether the addition of the citizenship question violated the Constitution's Enumeration clause (Part III), the issue of whether the addition of the question was an "abuse of discretion" (Part IV-B) and the question of whether the addition of the question violated provisions of the Census Act (Part IV-C), the Court divided 5-4 with Roberts, Gorsuch, Alito, Thomas, and Kavanaugh in the majority in rejecting those arguments.

On the issue of whether the Secretary of Commerce had total, completely unreviewable discretion to adopt the citizenship question (Part IV-A), the Court divided 7-2 with Roberts, Thomas, Ginsburg, Sotomayor, Breyer, Kagan and Kavanaugh in the majority (and Alito and Gorsuch dissenting) supporting the administration.

All that we won was on the issue of whether the stated reason for adopting the question was pretextual and, as a result, should result in the matter being remanded to the District Court for further proceedings consistent with the Supreme Court opinion, the vote was, 5-4 in favor of remand.

But here is where it gets dicey. The District Court decided not merely to send the rule making back to the agency, but to set aside the decision (in legal terms, to "vacate" it). The District Court stated that where the Administrative Procedure Act has been violated, the remedy typically is to set aside the agency action. But the court also acknowledged that remand without vacatur may be appropriate “when an agency may be able readily to cure a defect in its explanation of a decision and the disruptive effect of vacatur is high.” The administration argued that this was a case where remand without setting aside the decision below was appropriate, but the court rejected that argument based in large part on its finding that the addition of the citizenship question was contrary to law and arbitrary and capricious. But as shown, the Supreme Court reversed the District Court's determination that the question was contrary to law and/or the result of arbitrary and capricious rule making.

So...the door is open for the government to argue that the District Court's original decision to vacate the agency action adding the citizenship question was based on conclusions that have been reversed by the Supreme Court and that the District Court should modify its original ruling so as not to vacate the lower court decision.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

16. Don't miss these accounts:

https://twitter.com/lawrencehurley

Such as:

UPDATE: New U.S. census turmoil as Trump again pursues citizenship question

Link to tweet

This one too:

https://twitter.com/ZoeTillman

Such as:

Update: DOJ has filed a letter in census litigation in SDNY underscoring what they told the judge in MD. "The Departments of Justice and Commerce have now been asked to reevaluate all available options following the Supreme Court’s decision..." https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/zoetillman/census-trump-tweet-doj …

Link to tweet

And of course, good old Popehat and his many retweets:

https://twitter.com/Popehat

Such as:

is it good or bad when an attorney has to answer a yes or no question starting with a preamble like this?

Link to tweet

[mahatmakanejeeves]

17. Transcript of judge's conference call in Census case following Trump tweets.

[cackling intensifies]

Link to tweet

Holy cow -- I mean, just holy cow.

Link to tweet

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1M3Y6vj3QlQpSdlYcCdq3BkbnnWIrEPlf/view

[Historic NY]

21. Why is the DOJ interfering with the DEPT of Commerce & Bureau of Census?

[onenote]

24. DOJ represented Commerce in the case - as is the norm.

They're not "interfering".

[MikeJelf]

25. "Improve Your Lie," Say Supremes

This gestating bastard of a "Justice" Department legal motion is the yet-unborn spawn of an aspiring tyrant who never can be wrong, however publicly fraudulent, and a Supreme Court which said, "Your first assertion is 'contrived;' please come up with a better lie so we can prove we sold our souls (or not)."
Real judges will reject a scalpel handed them by a surgical technician with visibly filthy hands.
Thus is judicial parsimony unnaturally stretched to reach a level of duplicity to give the emperor's new suit a fashion plate endorsement.
It's one more example of how the norm is ever more degraded under a psychopath.

[dlk]

26. Desperately Seeking Contempt of Court...

[shanny]

27. "trying to find ways to pacify toddler-in-chief"

fixed it

btw, isn't the SC done for the season, and won't be back until early October? if it is too late now to change the census questions, on what plane of reality will it be OK to wait until then?

[dlk]

28. Desperately Seeking Contempt of Court...