The Supreme Court on Thursday sent the case involving the Trump administration’s efforts to add a citizenship question to the 2020 census back to the lower court for further proceedings in a loss for the Trump administration.
In its ruling, delivered by Chief Justice John Roberts, the high court said there is a “significant mismatch” between Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross’s decision for adding the citizenship question and the rationale — that asking about citizenship would ensure better enforcement of the Voting Rights Act — he provided. The court blocked the administration from including the citizenship question on the census for now, but did not rule out the possibility of the Trump administration providing an adequate justification for doing so.
“Altogether, the evidence tells a story that does not match the secretary’s explanation for his decision,” Roberts wrote.
Roberts joined with the court’s four liberal justices in remanding the case and wrote that it appears the rationale provided by the Trump administration for asking about citizenship “seems to have been contrived” and “was more of a distraction.”
“The reasoned explanation requirement of administrative law, after all, is meant to ensure that agencies offer genuine justifications for important decisions, reasons that can be scrutinized by courts and the interested public,” Roberts wrote. “Accepting contrived reasons would defeat the purpose of the enterprise. If judicial review is to be more than an empty ritual, it must demand something better than the explanation offered for the action taken in this case.”
The findings from the majority, however, were rebuked by Justice Clarence Thomas, who wrote the decision “unjustifiably interferes with the 2020 census” and “has opened a Pandora’s box of pretext-based challenges in administrative law.”
“Now that the court has opened up this avenue of attack, opponents of executive actions have strong incentives to craft narratives that would derail them,” Thomas, joined by Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh, wrote. “Moreover, even if the effort to invalidate the action is ultimately unsuccessful, the court’s decision enables partisans to use the courts to harangue executive officers through depositions, discovery, delay, and distraction. The court’s decision could even implicate separation-of-powers concerns insofar as it enables judicial interference with the enforcement of the laws.”
Kelly Laco, a representative for the Justice Department, said it is “disappointed” by the Supreme Court’s ruling.
“The Department of Justice will continue to defend this Administration’s lawful exercises of executive power,” she said.
The dispute pitted the Trump administration against 18 states, major cities, and immigrant rights groups that argued the addition of a citizenship question would depress participation in the census, potentially affecting congressional representation and the allocation of billions of dollars in federal funds.
The justices heard oral arguments in April, but the case took an unexpected turn when the challengers notified the court of new evidence that appeared to show the Trump administration concealed its motive behind adding the citizenship question to the census.
Files found on hard drives belonging to GOP redistricting expert Thomas Hofeller indicated he “played a significant role in orchestrating the addition of the citizenship question” to the Census to give “Republicans and non-Hispanic whites” an electoral advantage.
The New York Immigration Coalition, which was among the groups challenging the Trump administration’s move, said the evidence contradicts the sworn testimony of at least two top administration officials.
The findings from Hofeller’s hard drives were presented to the federal judge in New York who heard the case, but the judge declined to issue an immediate ruling regarding the new evidence. The Justice Department slammed the revelations as an “11th hour campaign to improperly derail the Supreme Court’s resolution” of the case.
The dispute took yet another twist this week when the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, hearing another challenge to the citizenship question, sent the case back to the district court in Maryland to determine whether the Trump administration acted with discriminatory intent when it decided to ask about citizenship.
The ruling came after immigrant rights groups presented U.S. District Judge George Hazel with findings from Hofeller’s drives. In a filing Monday, Hazel said the evidence “potentially connects the dots between a discriminatory purpose — diluting Hispanics’ political power — and Secretary Ross’s decision.”
The Justice Department urged the Supreme Court to address the equal-protection issue in its ruling. But the challengers in the case asked Hazel on Thursday night to block the Trump administration from adding the citizenship question to census forms.
The Supreme Court’s ruling comes just in time for the federal government to begin printing the questionnaire for the 2020 population count. The Trump administration has said it must begin printing the forms by July 1.
The Constitution requires the government to count each person in the country every 10 years, and census data is used to allocate seats in the House of Representatives and billions of dollars in federal funds.
Ross announced in March 2018 the 2020 census would ask about citizenship, the first time such a question would be on the form since 1950. At the time, the Trump administration said a Justice Department memo from December 2017 prompted the addition of the question, which would ensure better enforcement of the Voting Rights Act.
But those claims have since been called into question by the lower courts, which ruled against the Trump administration and blocked the Commerce Department from including the citizenship question on the census. Ross’s motivations faced additional scrutiny after the new evidence was uncovered, as the challengers said it “demonstrates a direct through-line from Dr. Hofeller’s conclusion that adding a citizenship question would advantage Republicans and non-Hispanic whites to” the Justice Department’s memo.
Federal judges in New York, California, and Maryland cast doubt on Ross’s justification for adding the question and determined he decided to do so long before receiving the Justice Department’s memo.
States and groups challenging the Trump administration’s decision to ask about citizenship on the census questionnaire argued doing so would lead to a population undercount that disproportionately harms communities with large immigrant populations.
Census Bureau studies cited in court filings found that including the citizenship question could cause roughly 6.5 million people not to respond to the census and in turn lead to the loss of U.S. House seats and billions of dollars in federal aid.
But the Trump administration argued Ross considered the possible ramifications of adding the question to the census before making his final determination and acted within his authority to do so.
During oral arguments in April, the Supreme Court’s conservative justices appeared poised to allow the question to remain on the census.
Gorsuch and Kavanaugh, Trump’s two appointees, both noted the United Nations has suggested countries ask about citizenship on a census and listed numerous nations that already do, including Australia, Canada, France, and Germany.
But the liberal wing of the bench challenged Solicitor General Noel Francisco about the history of the citizenship question and raised concerns that asking about citizenship could depress responses from Hispanics and noncitizens.
The case marked the first time the justices reviewed a major policy from the Trump administration since it upheld the president’s so-called travel ban in June 2018.
