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The Supreme Court Is Poised to Shred Its Credibility to Let Trump Rig the Census

By all indications, the Supreme Court is poised to let the Trump administration add a citizenship question to the 2020 census. The consequences of its probable ruling will last longer than Donald Trump’s presidency, well into the term of the next president, and possibly the one after that. Hispanics and immigrants will be undercounted, leading to overrepresentation in the House of Representatives and state legislatures of disproportionately white and rural regions. The result will entrench Republican power into the 2030s, depriving Democrats of representation in Congress and state legislatures, as well as electoral votes. States with large immigrant communities will lose billions in federal funding. Ultimately, the citizenship question is not some wonky dispute about proper census protocol. It is a dispute over who counts in America.

Here is the worst part: The Trump administration should have no legal authority to wreak this havoc. In his opinion blocking the citizenship question, U.S. District Judge Jesse Furman listed six separate ways that the administration violated the law in its effort to rig the census. Yet on Tuesday, the Supreme Court’s conservatives seemed prepared to reverse Furman and let the government include the question. To do so, these justices deployed credulity and hypocrisy in equal measure, abandoning their principles to reach the outcome desired by the Trump administration and the Republican Party. It was a very bad day for truth at the Supreme Court.

The genesis of the citizenship question is a notorious story of blatant deception, one that lay just beneath the surface of Tuesday’s arguments in Department of Commerce v. New York. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, who oversees the Census Bureau, initially claimed that the Department of Justice asked him to add the question so it could better enforce the Voting Rights Act. In reality, however, Ross’ excuse was a lie: He asked the DOJ to send the letter because he wanted a reason to insert the citizenship question. Every expert at the Census Bureau counseled against it; all available data, they told Ross, proved the question would lead Hispanics and immigrants to fear the census. Because many would refuse to participate, the citizenship question would prompt an “undercount” of these groups.

From a legal standpoint, Ross’ behavior is puzzling: The Constitution mandates the “actual enumeration” of people, not citizens; a citizenship question only makes that goal more difficult to accomplish. From a political standpoint, though, the secretary’s behavior is perfectly rational. If Hispanics and immigrants are undercounted, blue states like California will lose billions in federal funds, seats in the House of Representatives, and votes in the Electoral College. Yes, some diverse red states, like Texas, will be affected too. But the burden will fall primarily on urban areas where minorities and noncitizens live—areas, in other words, that lean Democratic. Rural regions populated primarily by whites—that is, Republican regions—won’t suffer. These rural, Republican regions will gain seats in the state legislature, while urban, Democratic areas will lose them.

From the calculus of a pure power grab—constitutional commands be damned—Ross, then, had no reason to listen to the experts who counseled against the citizenship question, and simply overruled them. So he ran roughshod over a series of legal obligations meant to limit the addition of unnecessary questions to the census—rules laid out by Congress, which the secretary ignored. Thus, not only did Ross conceal the real reason for his action, but he also repeatedly broke the law in his mad dash around statutory roadblocks designed to keep gratuitous and counterproductive questions out of the census. (To give two of many examples, Ross missed the deadline to report a new census question in Congress, and failed to comply with a requirement that the secretary exhaust all other options for data gathering before adding “direct inquiries” to the census.)

The liberal justices spent much of Tuesday’s arguments trying to lay bare Ross’ falsehoods. Justices Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan pushed Solicitor General Noel Francisco to acknowledge Ross’ duplicity, with mixed success. “A lot of your argument[s] just do not appear” in Ross’ explanation for his decision, Kagan told Francisco. “And the fact that” lawyers in the solicitor general’s office “can come up with 60 pages of explanation for a decision—that’s all post hoc rationalization—the question is, what did the secretary say? Where did he say it? When did he say it?” Kagan dismissed Ross’ justifications as “conclusory” and “contrived.”

Sotomayor echoed Kagan’s comment. “This seems like [Ross] thought of something,” the justice said. She then channeled Ross: “ ‘I want to add a citizenship question. I don’t know why, but this is a solution in search of a problem. I’ve got to find a problem that fits what I want to do.’ ” And Breyer cited Census Bureau expert John M. Abowd five times to drive home the point that all evidence suggested a citizenship question would impair the “actual enumeration” of people in America.

Then New York Solicitor General Barbara Underwood approached the lectern to argue against the citizenship question—and suddenly, after taking a beating for 35 minutes, the Trump administration’s fortunes turned. Chief Justice John Roberts asked why “it wouldn’t help voting rights enforcement,” since “citizen voting age population is the critical element of voting rights enforcement, and this is getting citizen information.” Justice Brett Kavanaugh then told her that “the United Nations recommends that countries ask a citizenship question on the census. And a number of other countries do it. Spain, Germany, Canada, Australia, Ireland, Mexico ask a citizenship question.”

“The question,” Kavanaugh asked, “is, does that international practice, that U.N. recommendation … affect how we should look at the inclusion of a citizenship question in this case?” He also called Ross’ decision a mere “policy judgment” and asked why the court should halt it in light of conflicting “policy considerations.” Justice Neil Gorsuch also pointed out that “virtually every English-speaking country and a great many others besides ask this question in their censuses.” And Justice Samuel Alito hypothesized why the citizenship question suppressed noncitizens’ responses.

“Citizens and noncitizens differ in a lot of respects other than citizenship,” Alito told Underwood. “They differ in socioeconomic status. They differ in education. They differ in language ability.” Sure, maybe noncitizens are afraid of a citizenship question because they’re afraid of being deported. But maybe they’re also afraid of it for mysterious reasons we can never fully understand!

What’s startling about Roberts, Kavanaugh, and Gorsuch’s questions in particular is that they seem to betray fundamental principles of the court’s conservative bloc. Gorsuch has disclaimed reliance on international law, proclaiming: “We have our own tradition and our own history. And I don’t know why we would look to the experience of other countries rather than to our own when everybody else looks to us.” Kavanaugh, echoing a Republican mantra, has argued that international law has virtually no role in the American legal system outside of treaties. (Even more disturbingly, the two justices seem to have derived their international law questions from an amicus brief filed by Eagle Forum, a fringe reactionary group founded by Phyllis Schlafly.)

Meanwhile, Roberts, who seemed so deeply concerned about the Voting Rights Act on Tuesday, has written and joined opinions gutting it of its force. And deference to executive agencies? Seriously? The contemporary conservative judicial philosophy, touted by Gorsuch and Kavanaugh, is rooted in opposition to agency deference. Yet the conservative justices want to defer to an unelected bureaucrat’s manipulation of the census. A greater hypocrisy is difficult to envision.

To uphold the citizenship question, the court’s conservatives will have to feign respect for the Voting Rights Act, international law, and agency deference—three of their greatest enemies in any other context. In the process, they’ll have to pretend that Ross’ absurd pretexts, his many lies and obfuscations, are believable, even reasonable. And they appear willing to do exactly that to let Ross and Trump have their way. Such a decision would be an embarrassment to the judiciary, evidence that a majority of the justices place the goals of the Republican Party above the truth. A partisan ruling in this case would diminish the court’s legitimacy and fuel support for the addition of more justices. If SCOTUS abandons any pretense of neutrality and throws its weight behind the Trump administration, court packing may come to look like the only sensible option to save democracy from its wayward guardians.

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2019/04/supreme-court-census-case-citizenship-question.html

Trump is the hill the GOP chose to die on...

I don't know who this Ross is, but it's clear as day that its the Left acting with duplicity.

They claim to be concerned with Voting Rights, making sure every vote counts... but clearly by "every" they don't actually mean "every". How can they? By not allowing an accurate count of citizens, people who have a legitimate political Right and say, they are in effect gerrymandering the House of Representatives. By continuing to advocate for the artificial inflation of regional populations in order to benefit from re-apportioned Representation, they are essentially suppressing the vote of a citizen from another State!

Wow. That writer isn't biased at all, is he?

Why is, "are you a citizen" such an inflammatory question. I thought the point of the census was to get an accurate count,not to hide information.

It's just the lefts outrage of the day. They look to twitter to find out what the outrage is and then these silly articles to find out what their talking points are supposed to be. Once the little lemmings know what to be outraged on, then proceed to disseminate these ineffective points far and wide on social media so all their minions are drooling about the same points.

You can set your clock by this detritus.

Exactly I agree. And that’s exactly how trump dictates his talking points to Fox News for his rage riders to deliver to the GOPer minions and sheep. It’s all the rage today to be outraged.

It's seems you missed the entire point of the census. But I'm not surprised. It's to check the population of cities, localities and states. The amount of people in a given area.

To try to dissuade people from filing the census only acts as a tool to make it appear areas have less people to reduce funding to those areas. That's not a census. That's a political tool.

One purpose of the census is to divide the house seats by population. Furthermore as with any Census Bureau survey the data provides a beginning for allocation of Federal resources.

If you take an honest look at the makeup of the governments of Sanctuary States and Cities, you will see it is nothing more than a Liberal/Progressive gaming of the system to increase power in Congress and receive more of other people's money.
All at the expense of the American Citizen who foots the bill.

I view both of these statements as having a lot a truth to them.

Maybe when a vote in Wyoming isn't worth the same as four votes in New York in the electoral college you can convince someone of that.

Counting the people of an area is important and people should not be dissuaded from being counted. We need an actual count of who is to be considered for Federal monies and who is to be considered for Congressional seats. Illegal Aliens, Undocumented residents, Documented Visa holders and visitors should not be considered for either but should be counted nonetheless.

In that case there should be different ways of counting each. But that's not what's being proposed.

The simple minded solution of "Just Don't Count Them" doesn't work for America. Citizens alone are entitled to the benefits of their own tax dollars and seats in Congress.

Well how many illegals will you know to complain and whine about then if they're not counted?

“The left”

I swear you conservatives will find a way to be scared of your own shadow. What a bunch of cream puffs.

The left....the lefties.... THE LIBERALS *thunder strikes*.

Y’all the kind of dudes who need to be coddled by your wives during a scary movie instead of the other way around.

I try to stay out of this pit, but for some reason I read this thread.

The Electoral College is designed to prevent small states from being overlooked in the Presidential race. The number of electors is not based on population alone, but rather is based on the number of Senators (2 per state) and Congressional Representatives. (based on population) These small states don't get a landslide of electors, but rather receiver the same number of total votes they get combined in the House and Senate.

This policy will prevent states that 'load up on" illegal immigrants from using them to artificially inflate their number of Congressional Representatives,. and Presidential Electors. California, for example, has roughly 2.2 illegal immigrants. They cannot vote, but they do give California roughly 3 extra Congressional Representatives, because these seats are based on population, and if there is no way to back out the illegal portion of the population, they all get counted to allocate Congressional seats. (and Presidential electors) This devalues the votes of citizens in other states. .

Many Democrat controlled states are also in the process of trying to have their their electors go to the winner of the national popular vote, regardless of how their state votes. In other words, if one of their states were to vote 99.1% Republican, and the Democrat won the national popular vote, they their electors go for the Democrat. (or visa versa) I am not sure how this is somehow better than the current system.

Anyway, just a couple of thoughts. Make of them what you will.

Don't you have a Kate Smith statue to go p*ss on?

who is kate smith?

Sorry, I thought you were up on current events.

California is a pretty bad example since their votes and the state of New York's vote per person only count as a fraction of what a voter in a state like Wyoming's count.

If you want to look at it more realistically, it seems like they want every single vote in liberal states to be worth even less than the 3-1 and 4-1 ratios they already are.

When a citizen in your own state has one forth of the voting power that someone does in Wyoming, adding a single congressman in your state won't "load up" anything. But losing one will even further devalue the worth of a single vote by an even greater margin. Which is exactly what the intended goal is.

Thats because unlike what Swish said about GOPers California and New York are a bunch of Girlly Men who vote the way their wives tell them.

Funny how the guy and his pals who spent 3 years destroying their own credibility post a thread about destroying credibility.

The census is to calculate US citizens not people who are here illegally and who should not be counted towards a state's legal representatives. Only legal citizens should be counted towards the census.

Then again liberal states love to use illegal aliens to cast fake votes to begin with so that criminals can help to run their states. Then they wonder why they keep falling apart.

Show me that in the constitution.

Or here is this:

The U.S. Constitution empowers the Congress to carry out the census in "such manner as they shall by Law direct" (Article I, Section 2). The Founders of our fledgling nation had a bold and ambitious plan to empower the people over their new government. The plan was to count every person living in the newly created United States of America, and to use that count to determine representation in the Congress.

https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/decennial-census/about/census-constitution.html

But if you seen it on Fox News it must be true.

As I understand it, they are still going to be counted, they are just going to be accurately counted as non-voting, non-citizens...

Would you check that illegal box in Trump's Murica? Can't count those who are scared to be counted. A lot of families with children that are citizens, maybe one adult legal and the other not... wouldn't count on ICE not getting these details.

You shouldn't be comfortable checking it in anybody's America.. because you are violating the law.

Violating the law? Big deal. The POTUS does that 10 times a day or more.

I'd break bread with an illegal about a 1000 times faster than with Trump.

Then prove it and lock his arse up... STOP DEFLECTING.

Doesn't matter if you prove it or not, he'll never get in trouble because the GOPers keep him above the law. It's just poor hard working people who get screwed in this country. Mostly people of color.

This whole census question is nothing more that GOP gerrymandering on a new level.

jc

i guess im struggling to understand why trying to figure out how many people, and who, are in this country is a bad thing

we need an update to the roster. obviously we will never get a true number on how many illegal immigrants are in the country, but we should absolutely see a hard number on how many americans/green card holders we have.

Agreed.

If we don't have an accurate as possible Census, why have one at all?

Just spin the big wheel and we can all guess.

Then what is wanting to extend the vote to illegals? To incarcerated felons? etc?

Haven't heard anybody say that illegals should have voting rights. The incarcerated felons thing is a constitutional debate. Personally I don't care either way because inmates will vote across the board so that's not gerrymandering IMHO.

Why take politics into the prison system?
Things are violent enough there.
Why have convicted felons fighting over their favorite candidates?

This place is a prime example and most of us are not convicted felons, yet.

"Newcomers".. that's cute.


Let me help you with some math... Blacks and Hispanics make up about 64% of the prison population (compared to about 31% of the overall population).. blacks vote 91% democratic, hispanics at 67%...

If you think prison voting wouldn't matter because it would mirror a cross section of voting, you are delusional.

Yet? Don't include the rest of us in your criminal ponderings.

With you Libs looking to make certain guns illegal, you will make felons of millions of us overnight.

I won't make you anything. You will.

This is where people like you appear to be so foolish. Upper New York state is not liberal. There are six members of congress from New York that are Republicans. There are seven members of congress from California that are Republicans. There are very conservative areas of California.

When do you propose that Republicans started voting for who their wives told them to?

See what happens when you try to paint everyone from some place as the same? It just proves how little you actually know.