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This is a stunning document that speaks volumes with its total omission of one key thing; the Voting Rights Act.
After litigating up to the Supreme Court on the rationale that a citizenship question was about VRA enforcement, this EO does not even mention the VRA once!
After litigating up to the Supreme Court on the rationale that a citizenship question was about VRA enforcement, this EO does not even mention the VRA once!
After swearing up and down to multiple courts that a citizenship question was about Voting Rights Act enforcement, the White House now drops that entirely and offers four brand new rationales, three of which have to do with immigration and one to do with redistricting. 
The first rationale offered for collecting citizenship data is to determine immigration policy. The second is to determine how much immigrants are using public benefits and to set policy on that basis.
Again, DOJ swore up and down it had nothing to do with immigration.
Again, DOJ swore up and down it had nothing to do with immigration.
The third rationale for collecting citizenship data now is to determine how many undocumented immigrants are in the United States, despite there being far more legal non citizens than undocumented immigrants, and the citizenship question making no distinction between the two!
The third rationale also cites as evidence of a lack of academic consensus on the undocumented population a widely-debunked “study” from some management scientists at Yale with no background in immigration that even the Center for Immigration Studies thought was bupkis.
Finally, the White House’s fourth rationale for collecting citizenship data is to establish voter-eligible redistricting at the state and local level, something the Supreme Court struck down as unconstitutional when applied to federal legislative districts.
As someone who’s been following @hansilowang and the citizenship question’s twists and turns, I am bowled over by the White House’s complete abandonment of the Voting Rights Act rationale. If I were a DOJ attorney who’d argued one of the Census cases right now, I’d feel betrayed.
Going back to that Yale study, this article from @nlanard is great. He asked the authors basic questions like “If you’re right, why doesn’t NYC know about the extra 1 million people you say are living there,” and got ridiculous answers in return. motherjones.com/politics/2018/…
As has been pointed out to me, I did misconstrue the holding of the Supreme Court in Evenwel v. Abbott about voter-eligible redistricting. They didn’t say it’s unconstitutional, they said it’s not required. My bad.
scotusblog.com/case-files/cas…
scotusblog.com/case-files/cas…
