The Supreme Court is poised to decide one of its most divisive cases since litigation around the travel ban: the challenge to the Trump administration’s attempt to add a citizenship question to the 2020 census.Even as the justices deliberate on this case, shocking new reporting offers critical support to opponents of the administration’s position. It strongly suggests that the justification from Trump administration lawyers, in their presentation before the Supreme Court, for adding a census question on citizenship was an outright falsehood, or at the least a deliberate pretext. A recently deceased Republican strategist, whose 2015 study showed that adding a citizenship question to the census would supercharge pro-Republican gerrymandering, provided the actual rationale and wrote key language that informed a Justice Department letter claiming that the citizenship question was needed to enforce the Voting Rights Act.We have seen this drama before. Last year, the Supreme Court faced similar questions of blatant misrepresentation from the Trump administration in the case on the travel ban. The court overlooked the sketchy details in that case and decided in the administration’s favor. In this term’s most important matter, the court should not be taken in.During the travel ban case, I remember sitting in the courtroom astonished when the solicitor general claimed to the justices that President Trump had “made crystal-clear” that he had “no intention of imposing the Muslim ban” — a ban that, as a candidate, Mr. Trump had repeatedly promised.In such a case, the justices look for evidence of animus against a particular group. And so establishing the connection between Mr. Trump’s pervasive anti-Muslim remarks and the ban he promulgated was a core aspect of the challengers’ argument.Ultimately, the conservative justices in the majority voted to uphold the ban, deciding that it was a valid exercise of the president’s authority. In the census case, which the Supreme Court will soon decide, the administration was challenged on the grounds that the addition of a citizenship question violated proper administrative procedures and would violate, by design, the constitutional guarantee of equal protection by discriminating against minority groups and immigrants, especially of certain nationalities.In three federal lawsuits, judges have ruled against the administration’s action.Much as I was taken aback a year ago as the travel ban case was argued, during argument day for the census case I was astonished to hear the solicitor general insist that the question’s addition was intended to facilitate enforcement of the Voting Rights Act. The facts brought out at trial made clear that this was a mere pretext for a pre-existing commitment to adding a citizenship question.The information recently revealed from the Republican strategist confirms in dramatic fashion what the trial record already showed: The Trump administration’s actual reason for the citizenship question
Opinion | Will the Legitimacy of the Supreme Court Survive the Census Case?
The Supreme Court is poised to decide one of its most divisive cases since litigation around the travel ban: the challenge to the Trump administration’s attempt to add a citizenship question to the 2020 census.Even as the justices deliberate on this case, shocking new reporting offers critical support to opponents of the administration’s position. It strongly suggests that the justification from Trump administration lawyers, in their presentation before the Supreme Court, for adding a census question on citizenship was an outright falsehood, or at the least a deliberate pretext. A recently deceased Republican strategist, whose 2015 study showed that adding a citizenship question to the census would supercharge pro-Republican gerrymandering, provided the actual rationale and wrote key language that informed a Justice Department letter claiming that the citizenship question was needed to enforce the Voting Rights Act.We have seen this drama before. Last year, the Supreme Court faced similar questions of blatant misrepresentation from the Trump administration in the case on the travel ban. The court overlooked the sketchy details in that case and decided in the administration’s favor. In this term’s most important matter, the court should not be taken in.During the travel ban case, I remember sitting in the courtroom astonished when the solicitor general claimed to the justices that President Trump had “made crystal-clear” that he had “no intention of imposing the Muslim ban” — a ban that, as a candidate, Mr. Trump had repeatedly promised.In such a case, the justices look for evidence of animus against a particular group. And so establishing the connection between Mr. Trump’s pervasive anti-Muslim remarks and the ban he promulgated was a core aspect of the challengers’ argument.Ultimately, the conservative justices in the majority voted to uphold the ban, deciding that it was a valid exercise of the president’s authority. In the census case, which the Supreme Court will soon decide, the administration was challenged on the grounds that the addition of a citizenship question violated proper administrative procedures and would violate, by design, the constitutional guarantee of equal protection by discriminating against minority groups and immigrants, especially of certain nationalities.In three federal lawsuits, judges have ruled against the administration’s action.Much as I was taken aback a year ago as the travel ban case was argued, during argument day for the census case I was astonished to hear the solicitor general insist that the question’s addition was intended to facilitate enforcement of the Voting Rights Act. The facts brought out at trial made clear that this was a mere pretext for a pre-existing commitment to adding a citizenship question.The information recently revealed from the Republican strategist confirms in dramatic fashion what the trial record already showed: The Trump administration’s actual reason for the citizenship question
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