Supreme Court Must Consider New Information About Trump Administration’s Intents With Census, Says ‘WaPo’

According to an editorial published by The Washington Post, the Trump administration was acting “in bad faith” when they worked to add a citizenship question to the 2020 census and new evidence supporting that idea should be considered by the Supreme Court.

As The Inquisitr has detailed, digital files belonging to a deceased Republican strategist are shedding light on the Trump administration’s motivation in their attempt to add the census question. The files were those of the late Thomas Hofeller, whose consulting work influenced the voting district maps that helped Republicans take control of the House of Representatives in 2010.

Hofeller conducted a study in 2015, which predicted that a citizenship question would adversely affect Latinos and “clearly be a disadvantage for the Democrats.”

The Supreme Court is currently considering the constitutionality of the citizenship question and may now include in their thinking the evidence of Hofeller’s political motivations.

In its editorial, The Washington Post says that this new evidence makes a powerful case in favor of striking down the addition of the question

“For those still unconvinced — including Supreme Court justices resistant to examining the administration’s nakedly partisan motivations — the revelation of new evidence Thursday made such willful blindness even less tenable. The court cannot let the Trump administration get away with manipulating the census in a barely disguised partisan power play,” the article read.

It is, however, so far unclear whether or not the Supreme Court would include the new evidence in their deliberations. The evidence was submitted in a federal court as their pending ruling is already in the late stages.

As The Washington Post writes, however, the Supreme Court may already have enough evidence of the administration’s intentions without having to weigh the new information, The editorial describes “a crystal-clear picture of an administration searching for excuses to meddle with the census for partisan ends,” and points out that government experts and independent voting rights advocates alike have already expressed concerns about what was happening with the census.

Voting rights advocates now possess 18 thumb drives and 4 hard drives used by Republicans' gerrymandering mastermind. The files contain "work from many, many states over years and years."

The census bombshell was just the beginning. https://t.co/07JkFdx7sW @Slate

— Mark Joseph Stern (@mjs_DC) May 31, 2019

The controversial case marks another opportunity to test the leanings of the latest configuration of the Supreme Court, which has been pulled to the right following two appointments made by Donald Trump in his first two years as president. The editorial closes by challenging the court on what it characterizes as an obvious position that should be reached.

“But, at this point, anyone paying attention would have to be purposely obtuse to conclude that the Trump administration acted for legitimate purposes. The court must not let this pass,” it closes.