From Mike Balsamo at the AP:
"The Supreme Court recently blocked the question , at least temporarily, saying the administration’s justification “seems to have been contrived.” That was a blow to Trump, who has been pressing for the government to demand information about citizenship.
The U.S. Census Bureau’s experts have said requiring such information would discourage immigrants from participating in the survey and result in a less accurate count. That in turn would redistribute money and political power away from Democratic-led cities where immigrants tend to cluster to whiter, rural areas where Republicans do well. (this is the whole crux, right here - LB1901)
Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Monday that Trump wants to add the demand for citizenship information because he wants to “make America white again.”
Meanwhile, the Justice Department is replacing the legal team that has been pursuing Trump’s efforts, putting in place a new team consisting of both career and politically appointed attorneys."
This comes on the heels of Trump's announcement last week that he would consider an executive order to include the citizenship question on the 2020 census.
"You need it for many reasons. Number one, you need it for Congress, for districting. You need it for appropriations: Where are the funds going, how many people are there, are they citizens, are they not citizens? You need it for many reasons,” Trump said."Update: None dare call it the open borders inquisition.
In a bizarro-world twist, an Obama appointed hack-in-black urinates on separation of powers (found somewhere in something called 'the constitution?) when he "rejected the Justice Department's request to replace its legal team that had been leading an effort to add a citizenship question to the 2020 census.
U.S. District Judge Jesse Furman ruled that the government provided "no reasons, let alone satisfactory reasons," for the request." Furman is the same judge who blocked the citizenship question in January after a two-week trial. Surprise!
I'm no lawyer, but apparently, 'motion(s)' must be filed with the court to apprise the judge with these types of changes. They're considerations of the court's time, not points of law for verdict.
From Bob Van Voris and Erik Larson at Bloomberg:
"The Trump administration initially accepted the Supreme Court’s ruling and said it had begun printing forms without the question. But in a tweet, the president ordered the government to re-examine the issue, prompting the Justice Department to reverse course and consider alternative ways to get the question - “Is this person a citizen of the United States” - on the survey.
The administration hasn’t said why it sought to replace the 11 lawyers on the case, many of whom have been on it since it was filed in early 2018. The Washington Post, citing a person familiar with the matter, said that some of the original lawyers had concerns with the way the government was handling it.
The government’s lawyers have filed similar requests to withdraw from suits filed in California and Maryland. Judges there haven’t ruled on those requests yet.
The Justice Department’s “mere expectation that withdrawal of current counsel will not cause any disruption is not good enough,” Furman wrote in an order on Tuesday. The judge said the Justice Department is free to make a new motion, “stating satisfactory reasons for withdrawing at this stage of the litigation.”
But the judge said any new motion to withdraw must be supported by a signed and sworn affidavit from each lawyer giving “satisfactory reasons” for the request.
Furman also pointed to a pending motion by the plaintiffs to sanction the government for allegedly putting forward false testimony about the motivation behind the question.
The Justice Department declined to comment on the judge’s ruling."
