Washington Post: Trump asks Supreme Court to overturn lower-court ruling that blocked effort to exclude undocumented from apportionment
Washington Post: Trump asks Supreme Court to overturn lower-court ruling that blocked effort to exclude undocumented from apportionment
In his appeal, acting solicitor general Jeffrey B. Wall requested the court resolve the case before Dec. 31, when the Commerce Department must report census data to the president. …
Excluding undocumented immigrants would overturn the way apportionment has been implemented for over two centuries, and census experts and constitutional scholars say it would not be legal.
The memo followed the government’s unsuccessful attempt to add a citizenship question to the 2020 Census, and it sparked a raft of lawsuits.
The Sep. 10 ruling by the U.S. District Court in the Southern District of New York was in response to two consolidated lawsuits over the memo — one filed by the American Civil Liberties Union, the New York Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU of Texas and the law firm Arnold & Porter; and one filed by New York Attorney General Letitia James along with 22 other state attorneys general and 14 cities and counties across the country.
Other legal challenges to the memo include one by the government watchdog organization Common Cause, and several cities, groups and individuals that was filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, for which a hearing is scheduled next Tuesday.
Dan Vicuña, national redistricting manager for Common Cause, called the administration’s legal arguments “preposterous.”
“This is a nakedly partisan attempt to break the law by rigging the census, and we fully expect the same outcome in this case” as was decided in the lower court, he said.
A Supreme Court ruling on this case could set precedent that would affect the lower court’s decision in the Common Cause case.