Census farce: Trump, Barr and the Justice Department make a mockery of the law

Source: Washington Post

Census farce: Trump, Barr and the Justice Department make a mockery of the law

By Jennifer Rubin
Opinion writer
July 7 at 12:00 PM

The Supreme Court found late last month that the administration’s explanation for inclusion on the 2020 Census of a question asking about citizenship didn’t match the facts. In other words, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross lied when he said the Justice Department had initiated the process by asking for such a question to enforce the Voting Rights Act, a blatant misrepresentation.

Last week, things got even worse. The Post reports:

Government lawyers said in a filing Friday that the Justice and Commerce departments had been “instructed to examine whether there is a path forward” for the question and that if one was found they would file a motion in the Supreme Court to try to get the question on the survey to be sent to every U.S. household.

The administration, you see, just hasn’t figured out what that non-pretextual excuse is. Its position now raises several questions, including: 1) Did the Justice Department lie to the courts to get an expedited Supreme Court hearing by claiming the issue had to be resolved by June 30 and 2) Did the president give the game away when he told reporters the question was needed for reapportionment? As The Post reports, “Trump’s statement could give additional heft to information discovered in May suggesting the administration worked with a Republican redistricting strategist who saw the question as a way to give Republicans and non-Hispanic whites an electoral advantage.”

Ian Bassin, executive director of the nonpartisan nonprofit Protect Democracy, tells me, “There’s a term for trying to create a structural political advantage for ‘Republicans and non-Hispanic whites,’ and that term is ‘white power.’ And we now know that’s been the purpose all along for adding a citizenship question to the census.”

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Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/07/07/census-farce-trump-barr-doj-make-mockery-law/