We lost a big one
Justices, Blocking Citizenship Question on Census, Call Trump’s Push ‘Contrived’
*********
And we won one
Supreme Court Rules Partisan Gerrymandering Claims Cannot Be Resolved by Federal Courts – In 5-4 Ruling
FROM NYT:
What did the Supreme Court say?
The justices sent the case back to a lower court. The majority opinion, written by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., said the explanation offered by the Trump administration for adding the question was inadequate. But he left open the possibility that the administration could provide an adequate answer.
Federal judges in each of the three lawsuits opposing the addition of the citizenship question had ruled that Mr. Ross was not telling the truth about the rationale for adding the question. Information unearthed after those lower courts ruled has cast even more doubt on the government’s explanation.
What additional information might lower courts consider?
After Thomas B. Hofeller, a Republican strategist, died last summer, his estranged daughter found hard drives in her father’s house whose contents revealed that he had written a report in 2015 saying that adding a citizenship question to the census would give Republicans a significant advantage in drawing new legislative district lines.
At the same time that he was pressing the Trump administration to add the question, Mr. Hofeller’s files revealed, he also wrote a portion of a draft Justice Department letter arguing that adding the question was critical to enforcing voting rights.
This week, a federal appeals court in Maryland allowed a lower court to study Mr. Hofeller’s role in the matter, which could ultimately lead to a further delay in settling the issue of whether to include the question in the 2020 census.
Bottom line: Will the citizenship question appear on the 2020 census?
It’s unclear. The Census Bureau has said that it must begin the immense job of printing census questionnaires by Monday in order to conduct the 2020 count on time. If that is a firm deadline, it would seem to be all but impossible to resolve the issue in time to conduct the head count with the citizenship question included.
But some experts have suggested that the deadline could really be more flexible than that. If so, the Census Bureau may be willing hold off printing the forms past Monday, in the hope that when the courts make a decision, there will still be enough time left to get the printing completed.
SCOTUS: Census question Stays; but needs further explanation from the agency. Supreme Court of the United States ^ | 06-27-2019 | John G. Roberts
SCOTUS: Americans have NO RIGHT to know how many citizens we have!