Judge Rejects DOJ Bid to Change Lawyers in Case Over Census Citizenship Question

UPDATE - July 10, 2019:

• A federal judge has blocked the Justice Department from switching legal teams midway through a case challenging the Trump administration's efforts to add a question about citizenship to the 2020 census.
• District Judge Jesse Furman blocked nine DOJ lawyers from stepping down from the case until they met a legal requirement to explain why they want to depart and showing that their exit wouldn't impede the lawsuit. Even if they are relieved, they'd be required to remain under the court's jurisdiction to answer any future questions.
• The Trump administration had repeatedly said during arguments in lower courts, and the U.S. Supreme Court, that the matter had to be resolved by June 30 so that the printing of the 2020 census forms could begin.
• “Defendants provide no reasons, let alone ‘satisfactory reasons,’ for the substitution of counsel,” Furman wrote. “As this Court observed many months ago, this case has been litigated on the premise — based ‘in no small part’ on Defendants’ own ‘insist(ence)’ — that the speedy resolution of Plaintiffs’ claims is a matter of great private and public importance.”
• Furman said the DOJ's request was "patently deficient."
• Trump blasted both the decision, and the "Obama appointed judge," in a tweet Tuesday night.

“So now the Obama appointed judge on the Census case (Are you a Citizen of the United States?) won’t let the Justice Department use the lawyers that it wants to use,” he tweeted. “Could this be a first?”

Countable's earlier updates appear below.

UPDATE - July 3, 2019:

• President Donald Trump is vowing to continue fighting for a citizenship question on the 2020 census, contradicting both his Justice Department and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross.

“The News Reports about the Department of Commerce dropping its quest to put the Citizenship Question on the Census is incorrect or, to state it differently, FAKE!” the president wrote on Twitter. “We are absolutely moving forward, as we must, because of the importance of the answer to this question.”

• On Tuesday, DOJ Attorney Kate Bailey emailed plaintiffs challenging the question that she could "confirm that the decision has been made to print the 2020 Decennial Census questionnaire without a citizenship question, and that the printer has been instructed to begin the printing process."
• Shortly after news broke about Bailey's email, Ross released this statement:

“I respect the Supreme Court but strongly disagree with its ruling regarding my decision to reinstate a citizenship question on the 2020 Census. The Census Bureau has started the process of printing the decennial questionnaires without the question. My focus, and that of the Bureau and the entire Department is to conduct a complete and accurate census.”

• The Census Bureau has referred questions about the president’s tweet to the Commerce Department, which has not yet responded to requests for comment.

Countable's earlier updates appear below.

UPDATE - July 2, 2019, 5:00pm:

• The Trump administration has ended its efforts to add a citizenship question to the 2020 census.
• The move comes days after the Supreme Court ruled against the question's inclusion in the next national headcount.

"We can confirm that the decision has been made to print the 2020 Decennial Census questionnaire without a citizenship question, and that the printer has been instructed to begin the printing process," Department of Justice attorney Kate Bailey wrote in an email to groups challenging the question.

Countable's earlier updates appear below.

UPDATE - July 2, 2019:

• The Trump administration has missed its self-imposed July 1st deadline for printing forms for the 2020 census.
• President Donald Trump said Monday that he's looking “very strongly” at delaying the 2020 headcount if his administration is not allowed to add a question about citizenship.

"You can ask other things, but you can’t ask whether or not somebody is a citizen?" Trump said when asked about delaying the census. "So we are trying to do that. We’re looking at that very strongly."

He continued:

• "I think it’s very important to find out if somebody’s a citizen as opposed to an illegal. I think that there’s a big difference to me between being a citizen of the United States and being an illegal."
• It's unclear what Trump was referring to—if a question about citizenship is included, it would not ask about a person's immigration status.
• As of Tuesday afternoon, the 2020 census documents had still not been approved by the Office of Management and Budget.

Countable's original story appears below.

What’s the story?

• President Donald Trump has suggested delaying the 2020 Census after the Supreme Court blocked the administration from putting a question about citizenship on the next headcount.
• “Seems totally ridiculous that our government, and indeed Country, cannot ask a basic question of Citizenship in a very expensive, detailed and important Census, in this case for 2020,” Trump tweeted.

“I have asked the lawyers if they can delay the Census, no matter how long, until the United States Supreme Court is given additional information from which it can make a final and decisive decision on this very critical matter. Can anyone really believe that as a great Country, we are not able the ask whether or not someone is a Citizen. Only in America!”

What’s the law?

• The Constitution requires an “actual enumeration” every 10 years, with seats in the House allocated based on “the whole number of persons in each state.”
• The federal Census Act outlines when the count must take place.

Title 13 of the US Code, section 141:

(a) The Secretary [of Commerce] shall, in the year 1980 and every 10 years thereafter, take a decennial census of population as of the first day of April of such year, which date shall be known as the “decennial census date”...

•  However, as Vox noted, “A Census Bureau official has testified that in an emergency, with ‘extraordinary effort,’ the bureau could finalize the forms as late as October and still print them in time for the census to begin in spring.”

What are people saying?

Hans A. von Spakovsky, Senior Legal Fellow at The Heritage Foundation:

• “Common sense tells us that the citizenship question should be included as one of many questions in the census to obtain accurate data on our population,” Spakovsky wrote in an op-ed for Fox News. “The purpose of the census, after all, is to collect such demographic information.”

“By kicking the case back to a lower court for further consideration, the high court essentially punted the administration back deep into its own territory, with little time left on the clock—unless Trump can succeed in delaying the census.”

New York Attorney General Letitia James, who led a coalition of states and immigrant rights groups in challenging the administration:

• “Every single person in this country deserves to be counted, plain and simple,” James said.

“Our democracy withstood this challenge, but make no mistake, many threats continue to lie ahead from the Trump Administration and we will not stop fighting. Now, more than ever, the marginalized, the disenfranchised, and everyday people need us to stand firm in our fight for justice.”

 What do you think?

Would you support delaying the census? Should the 2020 census ask about citizenship? Take action and tell your reps, then share your thoughts below.

—Josh Herman