Tag Archives: US Census

Former Obama AG Eric Holder writes in a new op-ed: Following oral arguments earlier this week, I’m deeply concerned that the Supreme Court appears willing to allow the Trump administration to weaponize the 2020 Census to determine where political and economic power in the United States should reside. Allowing the administration to demand citizenship information from every household as part …

Talking Points Memo reports: The Supreme Court announced Friday that it will decide whether the Trump administration can add a citizenship question to the 2020 census form. The Supreme Court’s move is the latest dramatic turn in a case that has proceeded in a remarkable way. The Justice Department appealed the decision directly to the Supreme Court — bypassing an …

Bloomberg reports: A federal judge blocked the Trump Administration’s plan to put a question about citizenship on the 2020 census, which will help determine U.S. elections, congressional seats and federal funding decisions for a decade. The ruling comes after a two-week trial in Manhattan that the government sought more than a dozen times to derail. The Supreme Court may have …

In reaction to swelling discussion about the oversized influence small states have on national politics due to their mandated two US Senators, many suggested “fixes” are being floated. Here’s one from Wharton professor Eric Orts: Let’s allocate one seat to each state automatically to preserve federalism, but apportion the rest based on population. Start with the total U.S. population, then …

Talking Points Memo reports: In what could be a major change for voting rights and the distribution of political power between urban and rural areas, the Census Bureau signaled Friday that it is willing to work with state and local officials charged with drawing voting districts if they want citizenship data for the redistricting process. The move to inject citizenship …

Reuters reports: The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday said it would hear oral arguments in February concerning a challenge by 18 states to President Donald Trump’s administration’s contentious decision to ask people taking part in the 2020 national census whether they are citizens. The legal question concerns the scope of evidence that a New York-based federal judge can consider at …

TIME Magazine reports: The Supreme Court is siding with the Trump administration to block the questioning of Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross about his decision to add a citizenship question to the 2020 census. The unsigned order Monday overrides lower federal courts in New York that would have allowed the questioning of Ross to proceed in lawsuits challenging the addition of …

Courthouse News reports: Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross must sit for deposition concerning his move to include a citizenship question on the 2020 census, a federal judge ordered Friday. Following up on his finding in July that the challengers had made a strong showing of bad faith on the part of the government, U.S. District Judge Jesse Furman said the secretary’s …

Courthouse News reports: Department of Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross told Congress earlier this year that he added a citizenship question to the 2020 census to help the Department of Justice enforce the Voting Rights Act. Contradicting that sworn testimony, new evidence shows that Ross received a memo several months earlier informing him that the Justice Department wanted to avoid monkeying …

The Washington Post reports: A cache of documents released by the Commerce Department overnight provides further evidence that Secretary Wilbur Ross was pushing to add a citizenship question to the 2020 Census far more actively, and much earlier, than his later sworn testimony indicated. The documents, released as part of a multistate lawsuit against the addition of the question, also …

Mother Jones reports: A federal judge said Tuesday that there was a “strong showing of bad faith” by the Trump administration in adding a controversial question about US citizenship to the 2020 census. The judge hinted that he would allow the case to move forward over objections from the administration, and senior administration officials will be subjected to questioning under …

Talking Points Memo reports: Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) in a tweet Wednesday linked the Trump administration’s controversial push to add a citizenship question to the Census to an approach to drawing districts that would boost Republican power. Rubio is not the first conservative to suggest that data gathered by asking about citizenship on the decennial Census could be used to …

Sarah Huckabee Sanders just told a whopper in defense of the GOP’s attempt the suppress the minority vote. USA Today reports: The Commerce Department is reinstating a citizenship question to the 2020 Census for the first time in decades, a move that some arguewill lead to an undercount of minorities living in the United States. The U.S. Census Bureau counts …

The Washington Post reports: The state of California sued the Trump administration Monday night, arguing that the decision to add a question about citizenship in the 2020 Census violates the U.S. Constitution. The state’s attorney general acted just after the Commerce Department announced the change in a late-night release. The suit is just the start of what is likely to …

Via press release: Today, the US Census Bureau reversed a previous decision to exclude a question on sexual orientation from the Census Barriers, Attitudes and Motivators Study. In response to this victory, Rea Carey, Executive Director of the National LGBTQ Task Force, issued the following statement. “Make no mistake – public pressure on the Trump Administration works. It was messages …