Trump Administration Pressing Ahead in Efforts to Add Citizenship Question to Census

[BumRushDaShow]

Source: New York Times



Justice Department lawyers told a federal judge on Friday that they would press ahead in their efforts to add a citizenship question to the 2020 census, but indicated they did not know yet what kind of rationale they would put forward. The assertion capped a chaotic week in which administration officials first promised to abide by a Supreme Court order that effectively blocked the question from next year’s head count, then reversed themselves after President Trump denounced their statements on Twitter as “fake news” and pledged to restore the question.

Mr. Trump told reporters on Friday morning that he was considering issuing an executive order adding the question to the census, one of four or five options that had been presented to him.

Government lawyers have been scrambling since Mr. Trump took to Twitter on Wednesday to find a way to restore the citizenship question while obeying the Supreme Court’s order. The justices ruled last week that the administration’s rationale for the question was “contrived,” and said that it could be added to census questionnaires only if officials could offer an acceptable explanation of why it was needed.

That rationale has been the central issue in the battle over the question, which has morphed from a legal confrontation in four federal courts to a fierce partisan struggle with potentially huge implications for national and local politics alike. Census figures determine how the government allots hundreds of billions of federal dollars for programs that impact the entire nation, citizens and noncitizens alike.

Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/05/us/census-question.html

[mahatmakanejeeves]

1. Don't miss these accounts:

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]

2. "Okay, so maybe it wasn't my dog that ate my homework. My cat ate my homework. Yeah, that's it."

Edited: "cat," not "car." You know what I meant.

"Any new decision by the Department of Commerce on remand providing a new
rationale for reinstating a citizenship question on the census will constitute a new final agency action, and Plaintiffs will be fully entitled to challenge that decision at that time" -Justice Department

Link to tweet

I once had occasion to enrage a federal judge on purpose, and I wasn't as over the top as the stuff DoJ is pulling right now in the census case.

Link to tweet

[BumRushDaShow]

3. I feel sorry for those Census Bureau employees

[Arkansas Granny]

4. Supposing they do get the question added to the census, is there a penalty

for not answering a question?

[quakerboy]

14. The problem is

that people will skip the whole thing, rather than avoiding one question that they perceive may endanger their family.

Thats the whole point.

[alwaysinasnit]

5. Fuck John Roberts and his equivocation.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

6. JUDGE HAZEL: "I need your final answer by Friday at 2 p.m., or we're going forward." Two days later:

Walter Shaub Retweeted

JUDGE HAZEL: "I need your final answer by Friday at 2 p.m., or we're going forward."

(Two days later)

DOJ, on Friday at 2 p.m.: The government "will immediately notify the Court" of its answer at some unspecified time, and it would be "premature" to move forward.

Link to tweet

[murielm99]

7. I want to see the final printed forms

before I breathe easily.

[Dem Dean]

8. This feels like THE pivot point

My gut is telling me, if that question appears on the census despite the Supreme Court's prohibition of it, we've lost. Not just the issue, but the country itself. The course of human history has, for the most part, been shaped NOT by Warrior Kings or Great Battles, but rather by smaller, quieter events that didn't seem all that significant to the people of the time.

[Everyman Jackal]

9. We have a rationale for putting the question on the census form.

We are just not sure what that rationale is but we do have one and as soon as we can remember what that rationale is we will inform the court.

[Marthe48]

10. Restore? The question isn't being restored

A rotten, vile group of racists are trying to add their question to the census. Using the word restore makes it sound as if what they are trying to do is put something back, when in actuality, it wasn't really there, at least in the form they are trying to shove down our throats. Here is a fact check link. I was thinking of the 'short' answer, rather than a history of census questions.


https://www.npr.org/2018/03/27/597436512/fact-check-has-citizenship-been-a-standard-census-question

[muriel_volestrangler]

11. Trump already gave an invalid 'number one reason' for the question today

so his lawyers shouldn't stand a chance. If the majority on this Supreme Court has any morals left, that is.

"You need it for many reasons," Trump said. "Number one, you need it for Congress. You need for Congress, for districting. You need it for appropriations, where are the funds going? How many people are there? Are they citizens, are they not citizens? You need it for many reasons."
...
The Constitutional Convention considered saying that a state's congressional seats would be based on the number of "free citizens and inhabitants" but rejected that in favor of the word "persons."

When Congress was debating the 14th Amendment, which provides further census guidance, it used the term "persons" instead of "citizens" or "voters."

In a 1964 case involving the one-man, one-vote principle, the Supreme Court said, "The debates at the Convention make at least one fact abundantly clear: that when the delegates agreed that the House should represent 'people,' they intended that in allocating congressmen, the number assigned to each state should be determined solely by the number of the state's inhabitants."

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/supreme-court/fact-check-trump-s-claims-about-citizenship-question-census-n1026951

[benld74]

12. Census is printing the 2020 forms and HAS been for awhile

an EO does NOTHING

ITS OVER

[BumRushDaShow]

13. I heard a report yesterday

where the idea of printing an extra "addendum page" with the question, that could be added to the forms currently being printed, was being floated.

[quakerboy]

15. Are you saying that the trump that pulled cash from every other budget to have a little ego boost

Would hesitate to take all the printed forms, throw them out, and charge taxpayers to reprint them all, no matter the cost?

[zanana1]

16. If these Republicans are going to denounce a Supreme Court decision,...

Then we have to take a little look at the Bush v. Gore decision, which led to eight years of war.

[bucolic_frolic]

17. Trump is trying to create #FAKELAWS

He is controlling the media with LIES

[MikeJelf]

18. Flattering a Psycopathic Liar Degrades the Court

If you or I appealed a judicial decision with testimony which subsequently was proven to be perjurious, as the Trump Admin. did, we'd be lucky to escape with a contempt citation.
When the Supremes say, instead, "Come back with a better lie," the judicial system, civic discourse and America are degraded.
We're looking like a banana republic beyond Richard Nixon's wildest dreams.