On the Citizenship Question: U.S. Dpt. of Commerce v. NY

The citizenship question is perhaps the most argued question on the census right now. It all started when the Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross decided to reinstate the citizenship question on the 2020 census, which was challenged due to its potential to undercount, as unlawful residents may be discouraged from responding. In the Supreme Court case, United States Department of Commerce v. New York (2019), the Court questioned claims by the Trump Administration's DOJ that, about the citizenship question on the census, it can better enforce the Voting Rights Act and prevent discrimination against minority groups during elections. The Court ruled that the citizenship question did not violate the Enumeration Clause or the Census Act, but it did agree with the New York District Court that the evidence doesn't match the Secretary of Commerce explanation for including the question.

With the majority opinion by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. (joined by Ginsberg, Breyer, Sotomayor, and Kagan), the Court argued that judicial review "[demands] something better than the explanation offered for the action taken in this case." In other words, for it to make a more firm decision, more information must be given. Roberts emphasized that Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross had "tried hard to find a rationale for adding the question," with solid evidence showing that the Voting Right Act rationale was not included until later on in the decision-making process. Ross, the Chief Justice indicates, wanted the citizenship question all along but failed to provide a reason, asking other agencies whether or not they "would request census-based citizenship data," finding the Department of Justice's rationale rooted in the Voting Rights Act much later, for which Roberts added that "what was provided here was more of a distraction."

This is only one of the many decisions made by the Supreme Court on this case. The entire court ruled the New York district court's finding that the citizenship question would cause noncitizens to be undercounted and cause them to lose funds, "[constituting a concrete and imminent injury." However, the Enumeration Clause, which dictates how many members of Congress each state has, permits Congress, and "by extension the Secretary," to include a question about citizenship, a "long and consistent historical practice" of exercising "broad authority" over the census, as Oyez put it. Roberts also held that the decision is reviewable under the Administrative Procedure Act, meaning that judicial review is warranted. He also held that the Secretary's decision was not "arbitrary and capricious" and that the Census Act wasn't violated, as the district court initially suggested.

A key takeaway of this case is that the Court ruled that the decision cannot be "adequately explained" and that the facts did not seem to with the administrations stated the reason for including the citizenship question. Ultimately, the Trump administration seems to have put this issue to rest, meaning that the citizenship question will most likely not appear in the 2020 Census.

Source
"Department of Commerce v. New York." Oyez, www.oyez.org/cases/2018/18-966. Accessed 23 Nov. 2019.
nytimes.com/2019/11/21/opinion/sunday/Supreme-Court-DACA-Trump-taxes.html
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/27/us/politics/census-citizenship-question-supreme-court.html