[ad_1]
A cache of documents issued by the Commerce Department late Monday night provides evidence additional that Secretary Wilbur Ross add a citizenship issue to the 2020 census much more actively, and much earlier, than suggested his last testimony under oath
The documents, published in the course of a prosecution Multistatic against the addition of the issue, also reveal The officials pushed the issue earlier and tried to get expert support in the face of overwhelming criticism from former Census Bureau directors and the chief statistician of the office.
In an email from May 2, 2017 to Earl Comstock, director of the department's policy and strategic planning office, Ross wrote, "I am mystified why nothing [sic] was done in response to my month old request that we include Citizenship Question Why not? "
million. Comstock responded the same day by promising to "put this in place" and add, "We must work with the Department of Justice to ask for citizenship to be added as a census question, and we have" [19659009ThisappearstocontradictRoss'stestimonyinMarchbeforetheHouseWaysandMeansCommitteestatingthattheDepartmentofJusticehadissuedtherequestforthequestion19659010] The purpose given by the administration to add to it was to better enforce the 1965 Voting Rights Act. Critics have called the measure a policy of depriving immigrants of their right to vote and siphoning off the political power of states with large immigrant populations, many of whom are more strongly democratic
. account more expensive. Census data used to capture hundreds of billions of dollars in federal funding, draw legislative constituencies and reassign seats to Congress
Ross made similar sworn statements before and after the announcement March 26 that the controversial issue would be added. The announcement sparked six lawsuits contesting the issue, including one in which the new documents were issued by New York Attorney General Barbara Underwood, on behalf of 18 states, the District of Columbia, nine cities, four counties and
In response, Ross filed an unexpected note in June, revealing that he was already considering adding the issue when he began his work in February 2017, after hearing from 39 other senior officials of the administration on this subject
. The new documents reveal further evidence of the involvement of these officials, including Trump's former chief strategist, Stephen K. Bannon. An email of April 5, 2017 from Brooke Alexander, Ross' executive assistant, said: "Steve Bannon asked the secretary to speak to someone from the census." The recipient of the e-mail mail was identified as "Ms. Ross "The wife of the secretary is Hilary Geary Ross
The documents also appear to reveal that the US Attorney General, Jeff Sessions, supported the addition of the matter;" September 17, 2017, an email from his office indicated that he was "eager to help" in the matter.
When asked about the new documents, a spokesman for the Commerce Department suggested that the first conversations about the Addition of the question was common. 19659018] "Executive officials discussing important issues before formulating a policy are evidence of good government, and the secretary's previous testimony before Congress is consistent with this fact, "he said, on condition of anonymity, why he chose to re-establish the issue of citizenship on the decennial census of 2020 in his decision brief of March 26, 2018. Nothing in the production additional ordered The court does not change the sound justification it laid out in March.
The spokesperson added that the documents "demonstrate that the citizenship issue is one of many important census questions. "
The Department of Justice declined to comment on the new documents The Census Bureau returned requests for comments to the Department of Commerce
In internal memos, the Census Bureau Scientific Director warned that Adding the question would be "very expensive, would hurt the quality of the census and would use less data on the state of citizenship than those available" from existing federal records, according to documents released last month in the case. Six former directors of the Census Bureau under Republican and Democratic administration also objected to the addition of the issue.
New documents include February 13, 2018, emails between Ron Jarmin, director of the Census Bureau, and Michael R. Strain of the American Enterprise Institute apparently refer to attempts of administration to obtain the support the question of experts.
"None of my colleagues from AEI would speak favorably of the proposal," writes Strain. "Is it important that the person is really in favor of the proposal?"
Jarmin replied, "We are trying to find someone who can express his professional support for the proposal unlike the many people we can find."
For the critics of the question, the most recent support the argument that the question is politically motivated.
"This shows that the census has become a tool from the early days of this administration until the end." said Vanita Gupta, President and CEO of the Conference on Civil and Human Rights Leadership
Noting that Ross held stakeholder engagement meetings on the issue in February of this year., she said: "It is clear that it was a pro forma thing, check-the-box. All these documents reveal how precooked it was. . . . I think there is a real question of whether he has misled Congress.
Senators Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) and Cory Booker (D-New Jersey) on Tuesday called on Ross to clarify the contradiction in his testimony.
"These emails between Secretary Ross and his team show that the enforcement of voting rights was only a trick crafted to justify the addition of a question of and that the Secretary lied to Congress when he said that it was the DOJ that "launched the demand," said Representative Carolyn B. Maloney (D-New York), co-chair of the Census Caucus of the House
Elijah E. Cummings (Md.), the best Democrat of the House Monitoring and Reform Committee of the Government, said: "Lying in Congress is a serious criminal offense, and Secretary Ross must to be held responsible. "
publish more Commerce and Justice Department documents later this week
[ad_2]
Source link
