1/17/2019

CENSUS/CITIZENSHIP/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT/TRUMP PEOPLE: “On Tuesday [1-15-19], Judge Jesse Furman ruled against the Trump administration and secretary of commerce Wilbur Ross’s decision to add a question about citizenship to the 2020 US census questionnaire. (In the interests of transparency, Judge Furman and I were colleagues in the US Attorney’s Office in Manhattan during his time there between 2004 and 2011.) In my view, Furman properly found the addition of the citizenship question to be unlawful as a violation of the Administrative Procedures Act (APA), ordering the question to be stricken from the census. While this is an important ruling that I believe is likely to be confirmed by higher courts, we are months away from the last word on the matter given the Trump Administration has said it plans to appeal the order. This closely watched legal action was brought in federal district court in Manhattan by two groups of plaintiffs, comprises numerous states and municipalities and various civil rights organizations. Ross and the other government defendants contended that the addition of the citizenship question was at the request of the US Department of Justice for better data to enforce the Voting Rights Act.”

Jennifer Rodgers, “The judge was right to keep citizenship question off the census,” CNN Politics, CNN.com, January 17, 2019 1:50 am