Litigants Against Census Citizenship Question Suffer Setback

One of the contentious cases before the Supreme Court this term involves the legality of the Trump administration’s decision to reinstate a question on citizenship in the 2020 census questionnaire. During the oral argument of the case last April, the conservative-leaning justices appeared inclined to allow the inclusion of the question. "Citizen voting age population is the critical element in voting rights enforcement, and this is getting citizen information," Chief Justice John Roberts said. Since the oral argument, however, new documentary evidence has surfaced that opponents of the citizenship question believe rebuts the administration’s claim that the purpose of the citizenship question is to enforce the Voting Rights Act for the benefit of minority communities. Rather, they argued, the newly discovered evidence shows highly partisan and discriminatory motives. As a result, they took the evidence to one of the federal district courts that heard their original case, and also submitted a filing to the Supreme Court, hoping to put the Supreme Court’s review on hold. So far, they have failed in that effort.

The new evidence consisted primarily of a study by a gerrymandering expert, relied upon by Republicans, who had recommended the question to ostensibly reduce the response rate of Hispanics and other minorities. Thus, the plaintiffs argue, the administration’s real purpose has been exposed – to deter Hispanics and other minority groups from responding to the census questionnaire. The resulting under-count of Hispanics and other minorities, the argument goes, would skew the population figures used for congressional redistricting purposes in the Republicans’ favor.


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