The Briefing Room

General Category => National/Breaking News => SCOTUS News => Topic started by: Elderberry on June 05, 2019, 01:19:43 pm

Title: Government responds in census citizenship case
Post by: Elderberry on June 05, 2019, 01:19:43 pm
SCOTUSblog by Amy Howe 6/4/2019

Last week the challengers in the dispute over the decision to include a question about citizenship on the 2020 census notified the Supreme Court about new evidence. The new evidence, the challengers argued, indicated that a Republican redistricting strategist played a key role in the decision, which was intended to create an advantage for whites and Republicans in future elections. Yesterday the Trump administration pushed back, calling the challengers’ accusations “meritless” and an “eleventh-hour” effort to “derail the Supreme Court’s resolution of this case.”

The government’s contentions came in its response to the challengers’ motion, made in a federal district court in New York, suggesting that the government should be sanctioned because the new evidence contradicts testimony and representations by government officials in the case. The response was attached to a letter sent to the Supreme Court yesterday by Noel Francisco, the U.S. solicitor general.

In the five-page, single-spaced response, the government dismisses as “false” the challengers’ claim that a senior Department of Justice official, John Gore, relied on a 2015 study by the Republican strategist, Thomas Hofeller, when Gore drafted a 2017 letter asking the Department of Commerce to include the citizenship question. “There is no smoking gun here,” the government stresses; “only smoke and mirrors.”

More: https://www.scotusblog.com/2019/06/government-responds-in-census-citizenship-case/#more-286539 (https://www.scotusblog.com/2019/06/government-responds-in-census-citizenship-case/#more-286539)