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Tuesday, January 15, 2019

The Citizenship Question in the Census

So it's on to the appeal in the Second Circuit.  Today, an Obama appointed federal judge in New York ruled that the government cannot ask people responding to the census if they are citizens of the USA.  The judge condemned the question and the decision to ask it in all sorts of harsh language.  There's no question that the government will appeal.

It's not worth going over the judge's decision.  It's 277 pages long, but basically it allows the judge to substitute his views for those of the Secretary of Commerce.  The Secretary, of course, is given the discretion to compose the census questionnaire according to law.  The citizenship question was asked for nearly 150 years until it was dropped about 50 years ago.  Given that history, my prediction is that either the Second Circuit or the Supreme Court will decide that the Secretary acted within his discretion to put the question into the census.  This will just be another detour caused by yet another liberal Obama appointee who thinks that he is given some sort of authority to be not just a judge but also the executive branch of the government as well.  It's a waste of time and money.

 

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