Maryland Census Judge Temporarily Blocks U.S. Lawyers’ Exit

(Bloomberg) -- The Maryland federal court judge presiding over a challenge to the Trump administration’s plan to add a citizenship question to next year’s census denied the Justice Department‘s request to replace its slate of attorneys with new lawyers drawn from elsewhere in the department -- at least for now.

U.S. District Judge George Hazel‘s ruling comes a day after a New York federal judge hearing a related case barred the government attorneys’ exits because they hadn’t satisfied local court rules requiring them to provide an acceptable reason for stepping down.

Hazel told the U.S. lawyers on Wednesday that he wanted assurances of an orderly transition between the incoming and outgoing teams and that those leaving would remain available to help their replacements. If the Justice Department satisfies those criteria, Hazel said, he would allow the withdrawal.

Government lawyers also have more work to do if they want to make substitutions in the third case in which the citizenship question was blocked, in San Francisco. There, U.S. District Judge Richard Seeborg told attorneys Wednesday that the case is out of his hands, at least for the time being, following a Supreme Court ruling that put the administration’s plan on hold because its rationale for the query was “contrived.” Seeborg said that if the U.S. wants to change its legal team, it needs to file a request.

To contact the reporter on this story: Andrew Harris in federal court in Washington at aharris16@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: David Glovin at dglovin@bloomberg.net, Peter Blumberg, Joe Schneider

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