6/27/2019

CENSUS/CITIZENSHIP/SUPREME COURT/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “What happened in the census case? That’s the question that Americans—even legal experts—confronted with the puzzling, blockbuster Supreme Court decision on Thursday [6-27-19] in Department of Commerce v. New York. The short answer is that the Trump administration’s efforts to include a question about citizenship on the 2020 census are at least temporarily stymied. Whether the administration can ultimately rebound and get the question on the census remains unclear. But Thursday’s decision also has broader implications for the Supreme Court’s entire relationship to the Trump administration. One of the administration’s distinctive characteristics is its approach to truth and lying. All administrations sometimes hide, shade or slant the truth—and occasionally lie outright. The present administration is different in that it lies regularly, blatantly, heedlessly. In the census case, the Supreme Court, for the first time, called the administration on this behavior—ever so politely and by the slimmest of margins.”

Richard Primus, “John Roberts Just Called Out the Trump Administration for Lying,” Politico, June 27, 2019