Whether or not a citizenship question will be included in the 2020 census is in the hands of the Supreme Court, but the people who oppose it have been fighting hard against it, fearing that illegal immigrants won’t fill out the census, won’t be counted, and thus won’t have an impact on things like federal funding and allocation of House seats.
The ACLU announced back in April that they were headed to the Supreme Court to fight against its inclusion, posting an “elevator pitch” video with all the talking points you might need. The ACLU estimates that 6.5 million people — more people than the population of Tennessee — won’t fill out the census if the citizenship question is on there. But do we want to apportion a state’s worth of representatives to non-citizens? That’s a rhetorical question; we don’t, but Democrats do.
Here’s how Mother Jones is framing the whole thing:
At stake is whether Roberts will allow the Trump administration to rig American politics for the next decade by corrupting the census, and turn the Supreme Court into an unmistakable ally of the Republican Party and white power. https://t.co/Dm0MDChzrc
— Mother Jones (@MotherJones) June 20, 2019
Calm down.
There’s also a story floating around (in places as big as The New York Times) that the Trump administration did a secret study to determine if a citizenship question should be added. Attorney Gabriel Malor has been following the case and thinks SCOTUS should slap it down.
DOJ has filed a strong rebuttal of the conspiracy theory advanced by plaintiff organizastions and the ACLU and spread by the NYTimes that the census citizenship question was inspired by a secret 2015 study. https://t.co/tEZVSjdoke pic.twitter.com/HMLoNgYt5u
— Gabriel Malor (@gabrielmalor) June 20, 2019
The Department of Commerce wrote in asking the court to dismiss the “new” evidence:
According to private respondents, a years-old document allegedly discovered among the personal effects of a deceased private citizen, Dr. Thomas Hofeller, somehow proves that he was the true mastermind behind the Secretary of Commerce’s decision to reinstate a citizenship question to the 2020 decennial census — and all because Hofeller allegedly wrote an unrelated and cryptic paragraph in a separate letter that someone else gave to the Department of Justice (DOJ) official who later drafted the formal request to the Census Bureau requesting a citizenship question.
The lack of any link between the 2015 study and Sec. Ross is damning, but I think the worse thing is that plaintiffs had all this stuff in discovery and only now, with a SCOTUS decision days away, leaping to claim that remand is necessary. pic.twitter.com/neU943GVFu
— Gabriel Malor (@gabrielmalor) June 20, 2019
It's bad-faith, dirty lawyering and these plaintiffs should not be rewarded for it.
— Gabriel Malor (@gabrielmalor) June 20, 2019
In light of DOJ's rebuttal, let's look back at that NYTimes article to see if any of its breathtaking claims are true.
First, contrary to ¶2 there is no evidence Hofeller played *any* role in the census citizenship question decision, much less a "crucial" one. pic.twitter.com/x6N2weQXnt
— Gabriel Malor (@gabrielmalor) June 20, 2019
Second, contrary to ¶3, the study was of the effect of using citizen voting age population on redistricting in light of a then-undecided SCOTUS decision. The study wasn't to find a way to disadvantage Democrats. pic.twitter.com/iwyy4yoZu6
— Gabriel Malor (@gabrielmalor) June 20, 2019
And third, also contrary to ¶3, Hofeller did NOT draft any portion of the letter DOJ actually sent to Sec. Ross that was the basis of his decision to add the citizenship question. pic.twitter.com/ctlVqvNZbG
— Gabriel Malor (@gabrielmalor) June 20, 2019
But aside from that, totally true.
So the whole premise of the NYTimes piece claiming the census citizenship question was created by "the [GOP] architect of partisan political maps" turns out to have been false.
Dirty lawyering in court and dirty journalism, all in service of swaying a pending SCOTUS decision.
— Gabriel Malor (@gabrielmalor) June 20, 2019
SCOTUS should swat this down hard.
— Gabriel Malor (@gabrielmalor) June 20, 2019
Something tells us they will.
This actually is the kind of BS that Trump thrives on. The Dems have perverted the census by moving away from the obvious intent of the Constitution and enabling statutes to count citizens by also counting non-citizens. Just bullshit
— Rubric Marlin (@RubricMarlin) June 20, 2019
Related:
All Republicans voted no on contempt resolution for AG Bill Barr over census … except Justin Amash https://t.co/zzsoCYDC9v
— Twitchy Team (@TwitchyTeam) June 12, 2019
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