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Judge rules against Trump administration's citizenship question on 2020 census

Rogue Valley

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Judge rules against Trump administration's citizenship question on 2020 census

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Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross.

1/15/19
A federal judge in Manhattan shot down the Trump administration’s attempt to ask about citizenship on the 2020 census Tuesday, potentially paving the way for the case to land before the Supreme Court. U.S. District Judge Jesse Furman found that Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross violated the Administrative Procedures Act by adding the question but also that challengers were unable to prove that the question was intended to discriminate against non-citizens. Furman ripped Ross’ decision-making process in adding the question, saying in his 277-page opinion that Ross’ move to ask for citizenship status for the first time in nearly 60 years committed “egregious” violations of a law structured to allow for judicial and congressional review of the actions taken by federal agencies. A coalition of 18 states and the District of Columbia, 15 cities and counties, and the U.S. Conference of Mayors, along with a second coalition of nongovernmental organizations led by the New York Immigration Coalition, sued the Commerce Department last spring over the planned inclusion of the question, which Furman’s ruling vacated. The plaintiffs argued that including a question on citizenship in the census would depress responses from the immigrant and Hispanic communities — two groups with historically low response rates to the census.

Ross has said he added the citizenship question in order to provide the Justice Department with more data to enforce laws protecting voters from discrimination. But leading researchers at the Census Bureau, which is part of Commerce, have objected to including the question, Furman pointed out Tuesday. Pointing to the role the census plays in the apportioning of congressional seats, drawing political districts and allocating federal and local funding, Furman said in his ruling that “the interest in an accurate count is immense." "Even small deviations from an accurate count can have major implications for states, localities, and the people who live in them — indeed, for the country as a whole, ” the judge wrote. Furman ripped the administration's support of the citizenship question, arguing that there are more cost-effective and efficient ways to count the citizenship status of those living in the U.S., writing in his opinion that Ross used pretext to defend the question. Ross “failed to consider several important aspects of the problem; alternately ignored, cherry-picked, or badly misconstrued the evidence in the record before him; acted irrationally both in light of that evidence and his own stated decisional criteria; and failed to justify significant departures from past policies and practices — a veritable smorgasbord of classic, clear-cut APA violations,” he said.

When is it going to sink-in on the Trump administration the State Attorney's General are going to file lawsuits in federal court when illegal edicts and/or discrimination is detected in administration policies and practices?

Related: Judge Orders Trump Administration To Remove 2020 Census Citizenship Question
 
I gotta say, I don’t see an issue with the proposed question.it doesn’t ask if you are in the country legally. It just asks if you are a citizen. So I would answer yes and my wife, who hasn’t applied for citizenship yet, would answer no. Most non citizens in this country are here legally so answering no to that question isn’t going to result in ICE coming to your door, even if ICE were allowed access to that data.
 
Oh my gosh how could you ask if someone is a citizen on the census questionnaire?
The nerve to ask a common sense question like that. You are just picking on the
illegal alien population once again!

(dripping with sarcasm)

The Supreme Court will have the final say!
 
Judge rules against Trump administration's citizenship question on 2020 census

x240-OTc.jpg

Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross.



When is it going to sink-in on the Trump administration the State Attorney's General are going to file lawsuits in federal court when illegal edicts and/or discrimination is detected in administration policies and practices?

Related: Judge Orders Trump Administration To Remove 2020 Census Citizenship Question

Complete MADNESS, allowing non-citizens to be counted as citizens.

Nothing but another treasonous act by the lawless left, to abet illegals helping the left takeover our nation.


The USSC will smack this idiocy down.
 
Oh my gosh how could you ask if someone is a citizen on the census questionnaire?
The nerve to ask a common sense question like that. You are just picking on the
illegal alien population once again!

(dripping with sarcasm)

The Supreme Court will have the final say!

Indeed, they will, and they will overturn yet another ridiculous Obama appointed leftist judge's ruling.
 
I gotta say, I don’t see an issue with the proposed question.it doesn’t ask if you are in the country legally. It just asks if you are a citizen. So I would answer yes and my wife, who hasn’t applied for citizenship yet, would answer no. Most non citizens in this country are here legally so answering no to that question isn’t going to result in ICE coming to your door, even if ICE were allowed access to that data.

Noted. The judge didn't particularly buy this argument because he had ample evidence of Wilbur Ross's true motivations.
 
when is it going to sink-in on the trump administration the state attorney's general are going to file lawsuits in federal court when illegal edicts and/or discrimination is detected in administration policies and practices?

never.
 
Oh my gosh how could you ask if someone is a citizen on the census questionnaire?
The nerve to ask a common sense question like that. You are just picking on the
illegal alien population once again!

(dripping with sarcasm)

The Supreme Court will have the final say!

The Constitution does not order a count of citizens.
 
The Constitution does not order a count of citizens.

Congress empowered to do so, Article 1, Section 2, in any manner they see fit.

The citizenship question aspect has already been adjudicated TWICE...and upheld.


As early as 1870, the Supreme Court characterized as unquestionable the power of Congress to require both an enumeration and the collection of statistics in the census. The Legal Tender Cases, Tex.1870; 12 Wall., U.S., 457, 536, 20 L.Ed. 287. In 1901, a District Court said the Constitution's census clause (Art. 1, Sec. 2, Clause 3) is not limited to a headcount of the population and "does not prohibit the gathering of other statistics, if 'necessary and proper,' for the intelligent exercise of other powers enumerated in the constitution, and in such case there could be no objection to acquiring this information through the same machinery by which the population is enumerated." United States v. Moriarity, 106 F. 886, 891 (S.D.N.Y.1901).

The census does not violate the Fourth Amendment. Morales v. Daley, 116 F. Supp. 2d 801, 820 (S.D. Tex. 2000). In concluding that there was no basis for holding Census 2000 unconstitutional, the District Court in Morales ruled that the 2000 Census and the 2000 Census questions did not violate the Fourth Amendment or other constitutional provisions as alleged by plaintiffs. (The Morales court said responses to census questions are not a violation of a citizen's right to privacy or speech.) "…t is clear that the degree to which these questions intrude upon an individual's privacy is limited, given the methods used to collect the census data and the statutory assurance that the answers and attribution to an individual will remain confidential. The degree to which the information is needed for the promotion of legitimate governmental interests has been found to be significant. A census of the type of Census 2000 has been taken every ten years since the first census in 1790. Such a census has been thought to be necessary for over two hundred years. There is no basis for holding that it is not necessary in the year 2000."

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit affirmed the District Court decision on October 10, 2001, 275 F.3d 45. The U.S. Supreme Court denied petition for writ of certiorari on February 19, 2002, 534 U.S. 1135. No published opinions were filed with these rulings.

These decisions are consistent with the Supreme Court's recent description of the census as the "linchpin of the federal statistical system … collecting data on the characteristics of individuals, households, and housing units throughout the country." Dept. of Commerce v. U.S. House of Representatives, 525 U.S. 316, 341 (1999).


https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/decennial-census/about/census-constitution.html
 
Correct. Article 1, Section 2, Clause 3 requires

"Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons[/I]"


Clearly, considering amendments that followed, the Constitution requires that the everybody be counted. There is nothing in asking the question about citizenship that precludes "everyone being counted". I think that is what the USSC will ask when the case lands in front of them. I would think that unless there is a rock solid indication of affirmative action to exclude those who answer "no" to the citizenship question, asking the question makes no difference in the count of people, but does provide the government with additional, necessary information.
 
Congress empowered to do so, Article 1, Section 2, in any manner they see fit.

Providing all PERSONS are counted. Counting only citizens would violate the US Constitution language.
 
Providing all PERSONS are counted. Counting only citizens would violate the US Constitution language.

Trumpers have no idea what is in and not in the Constitution. Trump is their Good Book.
 
I agree. However, would it not be incumbent upon those saying that this question precludes a full accounting of people to prove it? And since the accuracy of the accounting cannot be validated until it is complete, how can they presume to know the failure will occur?
 
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