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Author Topic: The American Constitution  (Read 118416 times)

Chris Kern

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Re: The American Constitution
« Reply #1240 on: July 09, 2019, 06:30:57 pm »

LOL, the Federal judge hearing the census case refused the Adminstration's request to swap out their legal team.

Interesting.  I hadn't seen that.

Alan Klein

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Re: The American Constitution
« Reply #1241 on: July 09, 2019, 06:38:21 pm »

I don't have access to the trial court record, but the Supreme Court opinion indicates that the evidence produced by Commerce at trial was grounded in the claim by Wilbur Ross, now reportedly abandoned by the government, that he was responding to a request from the Department of Justice that it needed the question about citizenship to be included in order to enforce the Voting Rights Act.  The trial court described this as "pretextual" (i.e., a pretext), and instructed the Department of Commerce to provide additional evidence if it was available in the administrative record.

I can't predict the course of future litigation but, again, the issue here is the evidence that's in the administrative record of the Department of Commerce.  It's not a matter of what the government argues: you don't argue evidence, you either have it and produce it or you don't.  Plus, because the plaintiffs were able to make a credible showing that Secretary Ross acted in bad faith, the district court has approved the plaintiffs' request for further discovery (documents or other information in the possession of the government requested by the plaintiffs), including depositions by key officials.  It appears these may include one by Secretary Ross, himself.  He could face a difficult decision about what to say, depending on what other evidence the plaintiffs have acquired and can produce in court, since his deposition would be under oath.

My own conclusions based on what I've read are:
  • The Secretary of Commerce clearly has the authority to order that a question regarding citizenship be included in the census as long as he has a rational basis for doing so and the purpose for including it is not otherwise prohibited by law.
  • It is unlikely that other appeals in this case will be handled in an expedited manner since the justification for the extraordinary hearing by the Supreme Court was that the litigation had to be definitively resolved prior to the July 1 deadline for printing the census forms.  The deadline has passed and the forms are being printed without the citizenship question, so that justification is moot.
  • It is likely that other legal challenges to the inclusion of the citizenship question will proceed, and that if the Administration tries to force the inclusion of the question by the issuance of an executive order or some other nonstandard technique, the new approach will also be challenged in court.
  • It is now all but impossible for the citizenship question to be included in the 2020 census.  Maybe 2030, but since the professionals at the Census Bureau reportedly have already determined (1) that the sample surveys provide the information the government needs regarding the distribution of citizens and noncitizens in the population to meet its statutory responsibilities and (2) that asking such a question as part of the decennial census would result in undercounting, contrary to the intent of the Constitution, I suspect even a future Republican administration would be wary about trying this again.
I would be surprised if anyone at the Department of Justice, including Attorney General William Barr, would take issue with any of these conclusions.  But when President Trump wants something, he wants it, and he is not about to be deflected by arguments based on law or established administrative procedure.  I suspect Barr, and the other political appointees at Justice, are going along with a last-ditch attempt to salvage this policy as a matter of self-preservation, rather than a belief that it will somehow prevail.
Thanks Chris.  It may be exactly what Trump wants.  By being unresolved, he can make a case about it during the election since most Americans were in favor of adding the question to the census.  Had it been added, it would become a non-issue during the upcoming campaign.  Now he can point fingers at the Democrats for not acting in the best interest of the voters.  "We need better judges up there who care about citizens. " will be his rallying cry.

Chris Kern

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Re: The American Constitution
« Reply #1242 on: July 09, 2019, 06:43:45 pm »

thanks for bringing up the APA  when I was still working at PhRMA in regulatory affairs, we filed two APA lawsuits and won both of them.  It's really easy for government agencies to screw up compliance.

Yah, the Administrative Procedure Act is the Catch-22 of the federal government.  But it serves a useful purpose.  It offers important leverage for private entities and citizens to challenge the application of often vague statutory provisions by unelected career officials (like my wife and me in our previous incarnations), as well as by uninformed and/or biased political appointees, and thus provides some assurance that federal agency policy decisions have a rational, explicable, and publicly documented basis.

Alan Goldhammer

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Re: The American Constitution
« Reply #1243 on: July 09, 2019, 09:58:32 pm »

Now he can point fingers at the Democrats for not acting in the best interest of the voters.  "We need better judges up there who care about citizens. " will be his rallying cry.
No,  it is b his own inept appointees that caused the problem and he can't run away from that.   Had they handled it the right way the question would be on the census.
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Slobodan Blagojevic

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Re: The American Constitution
« Reply #1244 on: July 10, 2019, 01:14:23 pm »

...

Alan Klein

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Re: The American Constitution
« Reply #1245 on: July 11, 2019, 11:50:42 am »

No,  it is b his own inept appointees that caused the problem and he can't run away from that.   Had they handled it the right way the question would be on the census.
The Democrats would have made a stick about it regardless. But you're right, they should have learned from the Muslim ban situation that things can be legal but you have to present it properly.

Slobodan Blagojevic

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Re: The American Constitution
« Reply #1246 on: July 11, 2019, 05:31:06 pm »

Well, Trump did promise winning, didn't he ;)

"Trump playing a winning hand in his fight against an accurate census"

(emphasis bellow is mine)

https://chicago.suntimes.com/2019/7/11/20690460/2020-census-illinois-immigration-foreigners-undercount-president-donald-trump-marlen-garcia

Quote
People will worry, either way, that completing a census form will lead to their deportation. It will be a no-brainer to ignore the form...

Even if President Donald Trump’s last-ditch attempt to get a citizenship question on the 2020 census fails, he’s still winning.

He is succeeding in scaring off immigrants from filling out the form. That’s terrible for Illinois, a state with about 1.78 million foreign-born people.

Alan Klein

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Re: The American Constitution
« Reply #1247 on: July 11, 2019, 08:47:47 pm »

Trump gave up on the citizenship question for the 2020 census.  He's ordered all government departments to go through their records to gather information through existing records.  Someone should tell him about the Census Division's own records.  I have yet to read any newspaper or other news outlet that even mentioned this information.  It just shows what a poor job they do reporting the news.  They're so caught up in the politics of it, they don't bother to check it out.  What are all their investigators doing?
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/11/us/politics/census-executive-action.html

The American Community Survey 5-Year Estimates already provides estimate of natural born and foreigners, not a US citizen. This links to the Census Division chart for Atlanta, GA.  Check the titles of the columns on the upper right.
https://factfinder.census.gov/bkmk/table/1.0/en/ACS/12_5YR/S0501/1600000US1304000

James Clark

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Re: The American Constitution
« Reply #1248 on: July 11, 2019, 09:17:26 pm »

Trump gave up on the citizenship question for the 2020 census.  He's ordered all government departments to go through their records to gather information through existing records.  Someone should tell him about the Census Division's own records.  I have yet to read any newspaper or other news outlet that even mentioned this information.  It just shows what a poor job they do reporting the news.  They're so caught up in the politics of it, they don't bother to check it out.  What are all their investigators doing?
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/11/us/politics/census-executive-action.html

The American Community Survey 5-Year Estimates already provides estimate of natural born and foreigners, not a US citizen. This links to the Census Division chart for Atlanta, GA.  Check the titles of the columns on the upper right.
https://factfinder.census.gov/bkmk/table/1.0/en/ACS/12_5YR/S0501/1600000US1304000

It’s front page on CNN, and you provided The NY Times link that explains the same. WAPO has a similar article as well.  All three talk about various ways to accumulate the data.

https://www.cnn.com/2019/07/11/politics/census-citizenship-question-alternatives/index.html

« Last Edit: July 11, 2019, 09:20:35 pm by James Clark »
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Alan Klein

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Re: The American Constitution
« Reply #1249 on: July 11, 2019, 09:29:30 pm »

It’s front page on CNN, and you provided The NY Times link that explains the same. WAPO has a similar article as well.  All three talk about various ways to accumulate the data.

https://www.cnn.com/2019/07/11/politics/census-citizenship-question-alternatives/index.html


Jim, The reporter in the video never mentions the estimates I linked to above and copied below.  The article also does not specifically mention the data is already at the Census Bureau, at least for previous years 2007 thru 2017.  Here's the data for 2017.  In any case, this is a new article dated today.  Where was everyone earlier when this issue came up months ago before and during the lawsuit?   It's as if the administration, Commerce, the news media, and everyone else are out to lunch.   We spend all this money on data.  And no one even knows it exists already and is being categorized.
https://factfinder.census.gov/bkmk/table/1.0/en/ACS/12_5YR/S0501/1600000US1304000

Alan Klein

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Re: The American Constitution
« Reply #1250 on: July 11, 2019, 09:36:21 pm »

Here's the methodology the Census Bureau uses to collect this information.  DIdn't the administration, Commerce, their lawyers,  DOJ, or the news media think of asking Census what they do and how they do it?
https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/acs/methodology/design-and-methodology.html

Alan Klein

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Re: The American Constitution
« Reply #1251 on: July 11, 2019, 10:09:03 pm »

They could have Googled it.  That's what I did. 

Bart_van_der_Wolf

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Re: The American Constitution
« Reply #1252 on: July 12, 2019, 04:51:01 am »

[...] It's as if the administration, Commerce, the news media, and everyone else are out to lunch.   We spend all this money on data.  And no one even knows it exists already and is being categorized.

That's illustrative of the underlying issue, it's not about getting data, it's about increasing non-response with certain groups of people, thus being able to redistrict and benefit Republican gerrymandering. It will lead to serious under-budgeting, but that's considered less important collateral damage.

Cheers,
Bart
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James Clark

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Re: The American Constitution
« Reply #1253 on: July 12, 2019, 08:08:12 am »

That's illustrative of the underlying issue, it's not about getting data, it's about increasing non-response with certain groups of people, thus being able to redistrict and benefit Republican gerrymandering. It will lead to serious under-budgeting, but that's considered less important collateral damage.

Cheers,
Bart

This, with a side order of creating a battle to show his base that he “fights for them,” with a dessert made of the fact that Trump just likes to fight - posturing and power games seem to be the only thing he really has in his repertoire.
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Slobodan Blagojevic

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Re: The American Constitution
« Reply #1254 on: July 12, 2019, 08:43:34 am »

Again, if someone chooses not to respond, it is their fault and the consequences are on them.

All I remember from the last census is that s guy came into my house, we had a pleasant 10-minute chat, he recorded my answers and left. Don’t remember anything controversial. You are required by law to answer. If you are a law-obiding citizen, that’s what you do (citizen in a global sense). It is called civic duty. Just do it.

Alan Klein

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Re: The American Constitution
« Reply #1255 on: July 12, 2019, 09:20:03 am »

That's illustrative of the underlying issue, it's not about getting data, it's about increasing non-response with certain groups of people, thus being able to redistrict and benefit Republican gerrymandering. It will lead to serious under-budgeting, but that's considered less important collateral damage.

Cheers,
Bart
Of course politics is involved.   When Democrats want to legalize all the illegals,  they want to do that to increase democrat party voting rolls.  They're not doing it out of the goodness in their heart.

JoeKitchen

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Re: The American Constitution
« Reply #1256 on: July 12, 2019, 09:20:35 am »

Again, if someone chooses not to respond, it is their fault and the consequences are on them.

All I remember from the last census is that s guy came into my house, we had a pleasant 10-minute chat, he recorded my answers and left. Don’t remember anything controversial. You are required by law to answer. If you are a law-obiding citizen, that’s what you do (citizen in a global sense). It is called civic duty. Just do it.

But others seem like they really have an issue with it right now!
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Slobodan Blagojevic

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Bart_van_der_Wolf

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Re: The American Constitution
« Reply #1258 on: July 12, 2019, 11:10:37 am »

Again, if someone chooses not to respond, it is their fault and the consequences are on them.

That's the issue. The consequences are on ALL!

So why inflict (under-budgeting) damage on ALL, without any need other than party politics?
The US Constitution stipulates to count All persons (regardless of their status).

Cheers,
Bart
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Slobodan Blagojevic

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Re: The American Constitution
« Reply #1259 on: July 12, 2019, 11:19:24 am »

That's the issue. The consequences are on ALL!...

All!? Not at all all.  Just areas with a large illegal population. Karma.
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