Trump Appeals Ruling Blocking Plan to Wrap up Census Faster
Trump’s Plan to Wrap up Census Faster Is Blocked by Judge
(Bloomberg) -- The Trump administration moved to appeal a judge’s ruling that blocked its plan to complete the 2020 census on a faster timeline, after civil rights groups complained the effort would undercount minorities.
U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh in San Jose, California, ruled Thursday that Commerce Secretary Wilbur L. Ross violated federal law by ordering a census “replan” that compressed deadlines and curtailed data collection. The ruling blocked the administration from moving its deadline for data collection from Oct. 31 to Sept. 30, and for reporting to the president from April 30, 2021, to Dec. 31, 2020.
A hearing is set for Monday, according to the court docket. The administration’s notice of appeal was filed Friday.
Civil and immigration rights organizations and cities including Los Angeles and Chicago argued that the truncated timeline would undercount minorities, resulting in less federal and state funding for the areas they live in for at least a decade. The results of the census are used to apportion seats in Congress and divvy up the Electoral College votes that pick the president.
In her ruling, Koh pointed to King County, Washington, Los Angeles, and Harris County, Texas as leading examples of places that stand to lose federal funding that turns on census data.
“An undercount in any locality matters greatly,” Koh wrote. “Even a small undercount of a subset of the hard to count population would result in the loss of federal funding.”
A Commerce Department spokesperson didn’t respond to phone and email messages seeking comment.
“Once again, the Trump administration’s unlawful attempts to undermine the census and manipulate the population count to the president’s liking have been stopped,” New York Attorney General Letitia James said in a statement.
The once-a-decade census has faced challenges from the coronavirus pandemic especially in hard-to-count communities. Suddenly and without explanation, plaintiffs argued, Ross’s Aug. 3 plan shortened data processing timelines from eight months to accommodate for Covid-19 to four months.
Emails produced in the lawsuit showed the decision to cut the time line in half wasn’t made by the Census Bureau but instead ordered by Ross, and flowed from President Donald Trump’s July 21 order aimed at removing undocumented immigrants from apportionment counts. The July order was a blocked by a judge and the administration vowed an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.
The government’s goal was “suppressing the political power of communities of color by excluding undocumented people from the final apportionment count,” plaintiffs argued.
Koh agreed that in addition to losing funding, undercounted localities stand to lose political representation. The judge cited evidence showing the Census Bureau was under political pressure from the Commerce Department to stop seeking extensions for its data collection.
The case is National Urban League v. Ross, 20-cv-05799, U.S. District Court, Northern District of California (San Jose).
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