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Today's revelations about partisan motives behind the citizenship question just expose another layer of its bogusness. In fact, when it comes to the question and the Trump Admin's defense of it, it's been nothing but misdirection and deception, all the way down. Walk with me 👇
Where to start...
(1) The Trump Administration has claimed--in the courts and Congress--that it wanted to add the citizenship question because it would help enforce the Voting Rights Act. Three federal courts have concluded that this claim is FALSE.
The first finding came from the Southern District of New York. The whole opinion is here (brennancenter.org/sites/default/…), key quote👇 
The VRA justification was never more than a "pretext." That is, the claim that the citizenship question was designed to help enforce voting rights is:
(Thanks @MerriamWebster)
Now, the courts couldn't uncover the real reason for the citizenship question, mainly because Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross wouldn't sit to testify under oath and other members of the Administration stonewalled.
But, legally speaking, it didn't matter, because, under basic American law, federal agencies have to give us the real reasons for the decisions they make. They can't lie to us. The citizenship question is based on a pretext and it is thus illegal under laws that protect YOU.
But wait, there's more...
(2) The Trump Administration has long defended the citizenship question by arguing that there's a nearly unbroken historical practice of asking about citizenship on the census. That statement is MISLEADING, where it's not outright FALSE. The @BrennanCenter has the receipts.
My colleague and I demonstrated in a @GeorgetownLJ article that Secretary Ross's decision to ask for the citizenship status of every person in the country is unprecedented. The census has NEVER asked for the citizenship status of everyone in the country: georgetownlawjournal.org/articles/311/c…
What's more, historical examples of citizenship Qs on the census that went to every household--questions that were never asked of more than a subset of the population--were part of a whole approach to the census that the Bureau rejected decades ago.
A shorter version of our article's main findings is available at @LATimes / @latimesopinion latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/…
Wait, there's more...
Now, after today's revelations, the real reason for the citizenship question seems apparent: enhancing the political power of the President's party and suppressing the political power of people of color and partisan rivals. nytimes.com/2019/05/30/us/…
What does this mean for the Supreme Court, which is currently considering whether to permit the citizenship question to go forward?
In short, the Court is going to find it VERY hard to write a defensible defense of the citizenship question. That was true before today. It is only truer now. Especially now that the public has all the facts.
And the Court's going to hear about this. The @ACLU just filed this with the Court: brennancenter.org/sites/default/…
I'm sure there's more. There always with the citizenship question, which is bottomless in its mendacity. We'll keep you posted @BrennanCenter
