The Supreme Court says the Trump Administration is in “bad faith” with regard to the citizenship question on the census. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
ASSOCIATED PRESS
In a closely divided decision, the Supreme Court delivered an extraordinary rebuke to the Trump Administration. It held that the administration was being dishonest in explaining why it chose to add a question about citizenship to the 2020 census. Federal courts are usually very reluctant to challenge the honesty of a presidential administration. Nonetheless, the Court held that under the circumstances, it would be an act of “naiveté” to credit the government’s explanation for why it is trying to restore a question about citizenship to the census after a 70-year absence of such a question.
This decision will have an enormous impact on America’s school children. Many billions of federal dollars are distributed based on census data. According to U.S. News and World Report: “Of the top 11 federal programs ranked by dollars distributed using census data in fiscal 2015, five specifically involve students and education. They include, among others, the $19 billion National School Lunch Program, which provides free or reduced price lunches for students; the $16 billion Title I program for schools with high concentrations of poor students; $12 billion in special education grants for students with disabilities; and the $9 billion Head Start program that provides preschool for children from low-income families.”
A recent study by Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government conservatively estimates that the citizenship question would have resulted in an undercount of about six million Hispanics. There are other much higher estimates. That means the citizenship question would have stripped hundreds of millions of dollars for lunches, special education, pre-school, and other important services from school districts with large Hispanic populations. This would have been especially devastating to poorer school districts with large Hispanic populations since poorer districts rely on federal funding for a larger part of their budget than do better off districts.
This decision shows that the Trump administration’s infamous dishonesty may be catching up with it. Last year, a sharply divided Supreme Court was willing to take the administration at its word that a travel ban that affected majority Muslim countries was not directed at keeping Muslims out of the country, despite harsh anti-Muslim rhetoric from President Trump. But this time, the Court balked.
The Court held that the Trump Administration failed to prove that it did not act in an “arbitrary and capricious” manner. It usually isn’t hard for the government to show that its actions aren’t arbitrary and capricious. This light standard of review requires only that the government has some sort of rational basis for its actions. And courts usually don’t question the government too hard about whether the reasons it gives are genuine. But the Trump administration acted with such mendacity that the Court couldn’t swallow its explanation no matter how deferential it wanted to be.
The decision to add the citizenship question to the census was made by Trump’s Secretary of Commerce. The Supreme Court wrote: “Our scope of review is narrow: we determine only whether the Secretary examined the relevant data and articulated . . . a rational connection between the facts and the choice made [to add the citizenship question.]”.
This should have been easy. But the administration told the Court such a bunch of whoppers that the Court couldn’t stomach it even under the most deferential standard of review. The Commerce Secretary claimed that the citizenship question would better help the Justice Department enforce civil rights laws. The Court acknowledged that normally it would not question the honesty of the administration. But it added that it had to make an exception when there is a “strong showing of bad faith” as there was in this case. The Supreme Court concluded: “Altogether, the evidence tells a story that does not match the explanation the Secretary gave for his decision.” Because the Court generally uses polite, technical language, readers who aren’t familiar with its decisions might not recognize what an extraordinary rebuke this is of the Trump Administration. This is the Court’s equivalent of shouting “liar, liar pants on fire.”
It is unclear what will happen now. The administration will have another opportunity to show that it is acting in good faith by including the citizenship question. But the wheels of justice move slowly and the census begins next January. Many experts, including NPR’s Nina Totenberg, have said that there is no way that the legal issues can be decided in time to include the citizenship question on the census. On the other hand, President Trump reacted to the decision by tweeting that he wants to: “delay the Census, no matter how long, until the United States Supreme Court is given additional information from which it can make a final and decisive decision on this very critical matter.”
So, the issue is not yet completely resolved. But for now, hundreds of millions of dollars in federal education funds for Hispanic students have been saved from evaporation. And for the President, his lies might be catching up with him.
