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Judge Furman's 277-pp. opinion in the challenge to the citizenship-question-on the-census-case is thorough and measured. 1/7
documentcloud.org/documents/5684…
documentcloud.org/documents/5684…
Furman finds that Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross's decision to add the question to the 2020 census was an "egregious" violation of the Administrative Procedures Act. 2/7 
But he does not find sufficient evidence to bear out the plaintiffs' claim that Ross violated the Constitution by discriminating against minorities 3/7
Here is a crucial passage pushing back against the claim that executive-branch decision-making is insulated from judicial scrutiny as long as the record is facially neutral. Courts should examine officials' behavior for signs of discriminatory motive, Furman writes... 4/7
...but although Ross's move here was "pretextual", there isn't enough evidence to show the pretext was to harm non-citizens and Hispanics. 5/7
The most important feature of Judge Furman's opinion is its reliance ONLY on evidence in the administrative record. This insulates it from a ruling at SCOTUS in a case coming up in February asking whether it's ok to "probe the mental processes of the agency decisionmaker"...6/7
...when adjudicating an APA claim. So even if SCOTUS rules for Ross, Judge Furman's decision seems safe. Still, an appeal by the government will come soon to the Second Circuit. 7/7
