7/11/2019

CENSUS/CITIZENSHIP/SUPREME COURT/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “President Donald Trump already suffered one stinging defeat when the Supreme Court invalidated his effort to add a ‘citizenship question’ to the 2020 census. Now he’s decided to try again, threatening to issue an executive order commanding the Census Bureau to add the question to its survey, and ordering the Justice Department to defend his action in ongoing legal proceedings. If Trump moves ahead, he will be threatening a centuries-old consensus that puts Congress in charge of the census. This legal foundation has been tested and reaffirmed repeatedly throughout American history—the last time when another Republican Party threatened by immigration considered modifying the census process to fit its political ends. Article One of the Constitution explicitly put the census in the hands of Congress, not the president. It provides that the first census ‘shall be made within three years after the first meeting of the Congress of the United States, and within every subsequent term of ten years, in such manner as [the House and Senate] shall by law direct.’ The Constitution also explicitly granted Congress the final say when it came to reapportioning each state’s delegation to the House and Electoral College based on the census count.”

Bruce Ackerman, “Why Trump’s Census Play Is Blatantly Unconstitutional,” Politico, July 11, 2019