TRUMP GIVES UP ON CENSUS FIGHT | Were The Administration’s Lies Its Downfall? | The Wild Card Justice
July 12, 2019
THE TRUTH ALWAYS COMES OUT
|In a surprise turn of events, PRESIDENT TRUMP yesterday abandoned his effort to put a citizenship question on the 2020 census. Rather, he announced from the Rose Garden that he wants the government to compile citizenship data from existing federal records. The New York Times reports, “Mr. Trump made the clearest statement yet that his administration’s ultimate goal in obtaining data on citizenship was to eliminate noncitizens from the population bases used to draw political boundaries — a longstanding dream in some Republican circles.” Trump said, “This information is also relevant to administering our elections. Some states may want to draw state and local legislative districts, based upon the voter eligible population.”
NO STONE UNTURNED
|“Still, the announcement reflected a setback in the President’s bid to cement his reputation as an immigration hawk. Trump believes the immigration matter remains a potent force in his popularity among conservative voters, and hopes to further solidify his position in the year-and-a-half before he faces reelection.” CNN also covers the president’s announcement yesterday and notes that Trump’s move comes just as federal law enforcement plans to conduct nationwide raids on undocumented immigrants.
I CANNOT TELL A LIE
|Our first president is fabled to have said he couldn’t tell a lie, and in The Washington Post, Leah Litman and Joshua Matz argue honesty is still the best policy for our presidents. They say that when it came to the census battle, the Trump administration’s lies were its downfall. They write, “This startling defeat highlights important limits on the administration’s playbook for laundering bigotry through administrative processes and bald-faced lies. It also showcases how executive abuses of power can be constrained: through congressional oversight and steel-nerved judges committed to the rule of law.”
BRIEF HISTORY LESSON
|For The New York Times, Michael Wines explains how “concerns about citizens and noncitizens have been at the center of changes to the census and battles over its results since its early days.” He reviews the different times in our history in which the U.S. government has asked, or attempted to ask, Americans whether they are citizens.
WILD CARD
|One of the biggest takeaways from the most recent Supreme Court term has been that NEIL GORSUCH isn’t your average conservative justice. David Savage with the Los Angeles Times reports on the ways in which Gorsuch has demonstrated that he’s willing to march to the beat of his own drum and “chart a course that does not always align with the traditional views on the right or the left.”