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Trump Finally Caves On Census Citizenship Question

Trump Finally Caves On Census Citizenship Question

Trump finally admitted defeat and said he will no longer pursue efforts to add a racist citizenship question to the 2020 census. Trump made the announcement Thursday during a press event in the Rose Garden.

Instead, Trump said, he will sign an executive order that he says will make it easier for government agencies to share information about citizenship.

“It’s a full cave,” Josh Gerstein of Politico tweeted in response to Trump’s remarks. “This is almost exactly what Census Bureau officials proposed as an alternative to what Trump officials wanted to do. And they said, just as Trump did today, that it would be MORE accurate than asking the question directly.”

Trump’s humiliating cave on this issue ends a long saga of Trump administration officials lying to Congress and the courts about their true reason for wanting to add a citizenship question.

The Trump administration’s goal was to rig the 2020 census in a way that “would clearly be a disadvantage to the Democrats” and is “advantageous to Republicans and Non-Hispanic Whites,” according to a Republican consultant who worked on the issue.

Experts agree that adding a questions about citizenship to the census would lead to a massive undercount of millions of residents, primarily Hispanic and black residents.

The Trump administration claimed its reason for adding the question was related to the Voting Rights Act, but even the conservative-dominated Supreme Court rejected that excuse as a lie.

Trump, however, was so determined to inject racism into the census process that he tried to defy the Supreme Court’s ruling. Trump pressured lawyers in his own Department of Justice to ignore the law and figure out a way to move forward with the question.

When DOJ lawyers failed to do what Trump wanted, the department tried to replace the entire legal team working on the case — an attempt that Judge Jesse Furman rejected.

After weeks of pompous bluster, Trump finally admitted defeat.

Published with permission of The American Independent.

Reacting To Supreme Court Defeat, Trump Seeks To Unlawfully Delay Census

Reacting To Supreme Court Defeat, Trump Seeks To Unlawfully Delay Census

In a blow to the Trump administration’s plans, Chief Justice of the United State John Roberts issued an opinion Thursday ruling against the Commerce Department’s plan to include a citizenship question on the upcoming 2020 Census.

While the administration claimed that the question was designed to help the Justice Department enforce the Voting Rights Act, Roberts and a majority of the court found that this explanation was not supported by the evidence in the case, and the Supreme Court upheld a lower court’s decision to remand the decision back to the agency. Many observers argued this will likely prevent the department from adding the question in time for the upcoming Census (though there’s some debate about this), and President Donald Trump, in two rage-filled tweets sent from his Japan trip, said he wants to delay the process:

The problem? The timing of the Census is mandated in the Constitution — it must be taken every ten years. A president certainly cannot delay it for his own narrow reasons, “no matter how long.” It has to take place next year.

Legal experts quickly pointed this out:

And others noted that Trump’s new suggestion contradicted what his own administration’s lawyers had previously argued:

Perhaps most revealing of all is Trump’s clear rage. Does anyone actually believe that he’s this worked up about protecting the Voting Rights Act? He’s never shown any interest in protecting the law, and his party is devoted to undermining it. The purpose of the citizenship question is to discriminate against areas that have non-citizens and warp the Census in favor of Republicans and white people.

Oversight Committee Votes To Hold Barr And Ross In Contempt Of Congress

Oversight Committee Votes To Hold Barr And Ross In Contempt Of Congress

For the second time this week, members of Trump’s administration have been officially admonished by the House for failing to comply with legally binding subpoenas from Congress.

The House Oversight Committee on Wednesday voted to hold both Attorney General William Barr and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross in contempt of Congress, as both men refused to comply with subpoenas relating to the Trump administration trying to rig the 2020 Census with a racist citizenship question.

The vote in committee was 24 to 15, with all Democratic members and one Republican supporting the contempt resolution and the rest of the Republicans opposing it. The resolution will now go before the full House to be voted on.

Both Barr and Ross have been refusing for months to turn over documents related to the citizenship question. Congress is probing the addition of the question to the Census, which experts say will lead to an undercount of millions of Hispanics in the United States because they may fear being targeted by the anti-immigrant Trump administration if they answer Census questions about citizenship.

Even worse for the Trump administration, newly uncovered documents reveal that the architect of the citizenship question specifically fought for the question to be added in order to disenfranchise Democrats and allow Republicans to hold on to power in the House. Census data is used to determine the apportionment of House seats.

Just as the Oversight Committee began debating the contempt resolution, Trump invoked executive privilege over the subpoenaed materials, thus shielding them from view.

Oversight Committee Chairman Elijah Cummings (D-MD) cried foul at Trump’s decision.

“This does not appear to be an effort to engage in good-faith negotiations or accommodations,” Cummings said at Wednesday’s hearing. “Instead, it appears to be another example of the administration’s blanket defiance of Congress’ constitutionally mandated responsibilities.”

This isn’t the first time Congress has had to rebuke top Trump officials for ignoring subpoenas.

The House on Tuesday voted to give House Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler the authority to take Barr and former White House Counsel Don McGahn to court to get them to comply with subpoenas over documents related to former special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation.

Ultimately, the Trump administration is flagrantly trampling on the rule of law. But Democrats in the House are using their powers of oversight to try to stop it.

Published with permission of The American Independent. 

IMAGE:  The chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform committee, Congressman Elijah Cummings (D-MD), on Capitol Hill in Washington September 29, 2015. REUTERS/Gary Cameron  

Congressman Blasts Commerce Secretary For Deceit In Census Scheme

Congressman Blasts Commerce Secretary For Deceit In Census Scheme

In a powerful moment, Rep. Lacy Clay (D-MO) slammed Trump Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross for “misleading Congress” and trying to steal political power from nonwhite Americans, and called on Ross to resign.

Ross testified Thursday before the House Oversight Committee about his role in adding a question about citizenship to the upcoming 2020 Census — a racist ploy by Republicans that would intimidate many undocumented immigrants out of participating in the survey. This would lead areas with larger minority populations to be undercounted in the census, which would deny those communities equal representation in Congress and equal access to federal funding.

Clay asked Ross if he would “take responsibility today for misleading Congress” when he testified under oath that the citizenship question was added “solely” based on a request from the Department of Justice in December 2017. But new documents and memos have surfaced showing that Ross was part of an administration discussion on the new question in April 2017.

Ross replied that he would not — and Clay was furious.

“Mr. Secretary, you lied to Congress, you misled the American people, and you are complicit in the Trump administration’s intent to suppress the growing political power of the non-white population,” Clay said.

“You have already done harm to Census 2020, and you have zero credibility — and you should, in my opinion, resign.”

Federal courts have already been ruling against the Trump administration on the census question, with one judge slamming Ross for violating the Constitution and breaking the law.

The attack on the census is just one of many underhanded tactics Republicans have used to try to hold on to their power. They understand that their voter base is dwindling, and that equal representation in politics across races and sexes ends up eroding Republican power.

Ross, like many other Trump administration officials, got caught lying to defend the GOP’s power — and Congress will no longer bend over backwards for them.

Published with permission of The American Independent. 

IMAGE: Wilbur Ross testifies before a Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee confirmation hearing on his nomination to be commerce secretary at Capitol Hill in Washington, January 18, 2017. REUTERS/Carlos Barria