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The Trump administration on Tuesday urged the Supreme Court to bypass its usual procedures and quickly decide whether a citizenship question could be included in the 2020 census.
Last week, the district judge American Jesse M. Furman of New York ordered the administration to end his plans to add the question to the investigation. Furman said that US Secretary of Commerce, Wilbur Ross, had breached a "real body" of federal rules by adding a citizenship issue, against the advice of career officials who claimed that It was likely to reduce the response rate and make the census less accurate.
Normally, the Department of Justice would appeal the decision to the US Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit. But Solicitor General Noel J. Francisco said it would not leave enough time for a final Supreme Court decision.
"The government must finalize the census questionnaire before the end of June 2019 to allow printing in time," he told the court. "It is extremely unlikely that the time allowed for the examination will be sufficient for both the court of appeal and this court by that date."
Citing a Supreme Court decision, Mr. Francisco said that "the case is of such vital importance as to justify the public interest. rule out normal practice on appeal and require an immediate decision of this Court.
The plaintiffs in the New York trial include 18 states and several cities and jurisdictions, as well as civil rights groups. The trial involved two of the seven lawsuits arising from Ross's decision to add the question. A lawsuit on the matter is under way in California and another is starting in Maryland.
These opponents say that asking questions about citizenship would reduce the response rates of immigrant communities, which could affect the redistribution of Congress and the distribution of federal funds. The government said the issue was necessary to enforce the law on voting rights.
In the 277-page Furman ruling, Congress prohibited the Secretary of Commerce from adding a question to census forms if the information was available in another way. He stated that citizenship data were available in existing administrative records.
Furman stated that "in an impressive number of ways," Ross' explanation for his decision was "unsupported, or even contradicted by the evidence".
For example, Ross said that the impetus for adding the question came from the DOJ, who needed information to enforce the laws on the right to vote. But the record indicated that Ross had wanted to add the question before the request of the Department of Justice and that it was the Department of Commerce that had begun to try to add it.
The Supreme Court had already scheduled a hearing on one aspect of the case. The plaintiffs wanted to tell Ross why he had added the question. But the Supreme Court blocked that in October. In November, he said the Furman court trial could continue and agreed to consider legal issues relating to the requirement to interview a senior official about his motivation.
But this question seems less important now, and the court removed it last week. the case of his file of 19 February.
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