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Administrative Law Keyed to Funk
Department of Commerce v. New York
Citation:
139 S. Ct. 2551 (2019)Facts
The Constitution requires an “Enumeration” of the population every 10 years, and Congress has delegated this task to the Secretary of Commerce. In March 2018, Secretary Ross announced his decision to reinstate a citizenship question on the 2020 census questionnaire, stating he was acting at the request of the Department of Justice (DOJ), which sought improved citizenship data for Voting Rights Act enforcement. The Secretary claimed he had carefully considered the possibility that adding the question would depress response rates but concluded that the need for accurate citizenship data outweighed such concerns.
Evidence later revealed that Secretary Ross had begun considering adding the citizenship question shortly after taking office in 2017, well before the DOJ’s December 2017 request. The record showed that the Commerce Department had actually solicited the DOJ request after other agencies declined to request citizenship data. The Census Bureau had advised against adding the question, informing the Secretary that it would produce less accurate citizenship data than using existing administrative records and would likely reduce response rates among noncitizen households. Despite this advice, the Secretary chose to add the question, claiming the benefits outweighed the risks.
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