[ad_1]
Voter advocates who opposed the government's attempt to add a census question on citizenship faced a setback on Wednesday. A federal court has postponed any investigation into new evidence that the issue came from a partisan agent who hoped it would benefit "non-Hispanic whites."
The case – and the question of what to do about newly revealed evidence – is now in the hands of the Supreme Court, which is expected to make a decision within the next three weeks.
The ACLU, the New York Immigration Coalition and others had hoped that Judge Jesse Furman would allow the expedited discovery of the case. This would allow them to search for more evidence and possibly interview government officials about what they knew and when.
The evidence consists of a pile of documents found on the deceased agent's hard drive and contradicts the sworn testimony of government officials who claimed to have raised the issue of citizenship themselves. Exploring more evidence would probably lead to more damning information and could eventually lead the Supreme Court to suspend its own deliberations.
Furman JA noted, however, that "there is no urgency on these issues". This is because, in law, it is only a matter of knowing whether the officials lied or committed a fault. And that has nothing to do with the case itself. Whatever the decision of the Supreme Court, investigation of misconduct may continue for whatever reason.
Furman J. ordered the complainants to file briefs in this inquiry by July 12.
In many ways, though, the cat is already out of the bag. The evidence was filed and made public. And it's really shocking. This suggests that the goal of the citizenship question is to redraw Congress districts based on their number of citizens, rather than their total population.
In districts where many (legal) non-citizens live, this would mean less congressional representation. Starting from 200 years of American tradition, he would replace "a person, a voice" by "a citizen, a voice". It would transform democracy in America to the detriment of immigrants, their families and their communities, who are overwhelmingly people of color.
As the activists explained in a brief submitted to the district court, "overwhelming new evidence reveals highly racially discriminatory and racially motivated motives for the citizenship issue."
It is impossible to see that.
The question now is whether the Supreme Court will take that into account.
On the legal side, the evidence is relevant because one of the activists' claims is that the government violated the law on administrative procedure by conducting a sham public process when they had already decided to add the question of citizenship for political reasons. The new documents support this argument.
"It is entirely possible that the majority of the Court will simply settle the case on the basis of the evidence presented above, rendering all new discoveries legally irrelevant."
At the same time, the new documents in fact contradict the activists' claim that the question was added to dissuade Hispanics from responding to the census for fear of triggering governmental action against them or their families, which would have negative consequences for them. communities of color.
It now seems that intimidation of Hispanics was just the icing on the Trump administration's sundae. Ice was transforming democracy itself in favor of whites over people of color.
Whatever the relevance of this new evidence, the Supreme Court has broad discretion to decide what to do about it.
Theoretically, the court could refer the case to the district court for consideration of the new evidence. The question of citizenship would likely be condemned, as the 2020 census forms are soon to be printed.
If you take a cynical view of the Court, it is rather unlikely that the Conservative majority – which seemed to accept the government's position literally during the April pleadings – will allow this to happen. happen. It is entirely possible that the majority of the Court will simply settle the case on the basis of the evidence presented above, rendering all new discoveries legally irrelevant.
After all, if the position of the Court is simply to assess the grounds invoked by the government without seeking to know how it came to that position, no matter what this new evidence reveals, it does not really have to importance.
This is from the beginning the position of the government: all that is required is "an objectively rational basis" for the rule. Do not pay attention to all these men behind the curtain.
On the other hand, the Court did not have this new evidence in April. It is possible that Chief Justice John Roberts, who has repeatedly ruled against the political interests of Republicans (especially by rescuing Obamacare), does so again here.
There are precedents on both sides of the issue. Sometimes the Supreme Court admits new evidence; on other occasions, this is not the case. Unlike the lower courts, the Supreme Court can more or less do what it wants.
Soon, we will discover what it is.
[ad_2]
Source link