John Roberts's Legacy Is Finished If He Revives the Census Citizenship Question
The question of the administration*'s wanting to include a citizenship question on the 2020 census is not an open one. The administration* wants to add that question for the express purpose of suppressing inconvenient votes through the implicit intimidation of the inconvenient people most likely to cast them. This is not subject to debate. The late Thomas Hofeller, the GOP's king of the complex ratfck, left all the evidence anyone should need on the hard drive of his computer prior to going to that great data mine in the sky. From The New York Times:
Files on those drives showed that he wrote a study in 2015 concluding that adding a citizenship question to the census would allow Republicans to draft even more extreme gerrymandered maps to stymie Democrats. And months after urging President Trump’s transition team to tack the question onto the census, he wrote the key portion of a draft Justice Department letter claiming the question was needed to enforce the 1965 Voting Rights Act — the rationale the administration later used to justify its decision.
This story popped while the Supreme Court was preparing to rule on the administration's demand for the citizenship question. As far as anyone knows, the Hofeller files did not inform the Court's 5-4 decision, written by Chief Justice John Roberts, against the inclusion of the question. (The administration*'s bad faith should have been obvious nonetheless. The Constitution mandates the census count "persons," not citizens. But four Supreme Court Justices hand-waved that consideration away.)
Of course, as is his curious wont, Roberts left a small window of opportunity for the people seeking to suppress those inconvenient votes by inconvenient voters. He said the administration* had the right to include the question as long as it didn't lie so blatantly about why. Since then, of course, thanks to the late Mr. Hofeller's estranged children, we know that the lies were even more blatant than they were before. That's the context in which the case will be decided if and when it comes before the Nine Wise Souls again. And, remember, four of them thought everything was kosher the last time.
On Monday, to the surprise of absolutely nobody, William Barr, the president*'s pet attorney general, delivered himself of the opinion that the administration had found a way to include the citizenship question that would pass muster with Roberts. From the AP, via PBS:
In an interview with The Associated Press, Barr said the Trump administration will take action in the coming days that he believes will allow the government to ask the controversial question. Barr would not detail the administration’s plans, though a senior official said President Donald Trump is expected to issue a presidential memorandum to the Commerce Department instructing it to include the question...
“I agree with him that the Supreme Court decision was wrong,” said Barr. He said he believes there is “an opportunity potentially to cure the lack of clarity that was the problem and we might as well take a shot at doing that.”
"The lack of clarity" is just nifty, isn't it? Things were very clear. The administration* was lying its sagging ass off and Roberts, whatever you think of him, caught them at it. Since then, the size of the deceit and bad faith has expanded publicly, and still the administration* is going to try again. And the attorney general is on board, too. Roberts has to know that, if he lets this pass this time around, he goes into the toolbox permanently, right next to Barr and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross. His legacy goes in there with him. He's already got Citizens United, McCutcheon, and Shelby County hanging from around his neck. We bear the chains we forge in life, Chief.
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