GREENBELT, Md. -- A federal judge in Maryland ruled Friday against the government's addition of a citizenship question to the 2020 census, the third decision against President Donald Trump's administration on the issue.
Judge George Hazel of the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland in Greenbelt found that the government violated administrative law when it decided to add the question last year. The ruling, like two earlier ones, will likely be appealed to the Supreme Court.
In his ruling, Hazel wrote, "The unreasonableness of Defendants' addition of a citizenship question to the Census is underscored by the lack of any genuine need for the citizenship question, the woefully deficient process that led to it, the mysterious and potentially improper political considerations that motivated the decision and the clear pretext offered to the public."
Hazel did not find enough evidence to support plaintiffs' claims that the government intended to discriminate against immigrants, Hispanics and Asian Americans by adding the question, or that adding the question was part of a conspiracy within the Trump administration to violate the constitutional rights of noncitizens and people of color.
"We are disappointed by this ruling. Our government is legally entitled to include a citizenship question on the census and people in the United States have a legal obligation to answer," said Kelly Laco, a spokesman for the Justice Department. The Commerce Department declined to comment.
Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross' March 2018 announcement of the question caused an outcry among former Census Bureau directors, statisticians, civil-rights organizations and Democratic lawmakers.
Opponents said the late addition, which did not undergo the years of planning and testing that new questions usually do, would lead to undercounts among immigrant communities and affect federal funding, apportionment and redistricting. They noted that the bureau's own analysis found that adding the question could jeopardize the accuracy of the survey. The government has said that it needs the question to better enforce the Voting Rights Act.
After two federal judges in New York and California earlier this year ordered the government to stop its plans to add the question, the Supreme Court is set to take up the question April 23.
It will be one of the last oral arguments the high court hears this term, and the justices have put themselves in position to exceed their normal hourlong hearing if they decide it necessary.
The court already has requested briefing on both issues on which Hazel sided with plaintiffs.
In all three trials, the Trump administration was found to have violated the Administrative Procedure Act, which governs the process by which federal agencies develop and issue regulations. In addition, the Maryland and California judges found the question to be unconstitutional because it would hinder the Constitution's requirement of an "actual enumeration" of the population every 10 years.
The lawsuits contended that Ross had ignored long-established protocol for adding a question and had gone against expert advice that criticized the plan.
A key element was the secretary's shifting statements about the origin of the request for the question to be added. Ross told Congress last spring that he was responding to a December 2017 request from the Justice Department, but the lawsuits uncovered emails indicating he was the one who asked the department to make the request.
Emails also showed Ross had discussed the addition months earlier with Steve Bannon when he was White House chief strategist, as well as with Kris Kobach when he was Kansas secretary of state.
In his ruling, Hazel found that the government's rationale for adding the question to be "a mere pretext."
Information for this article was contributed by Robert Barnes of The Washington Post.
A Section on 04/06/2019