Last week, the U.S. Supreme Court blocked the Trump administration’s controversial inclusion of a citizenship question on the 2020 census. The high court said the Trump administration used a “contrived” rationale for wanting to add it.
But the issue is far from settled. The Texas Tribune’s Alexa Ura says another legal challenge to the census citizenship question is still pending in a Maryland court. Plaintiffs in this second case have asked federal Judge George Hazel to expedite it so they can get a decision in time to print census questionnaires this summer.
“We’re waiting to hear from that judge to see if that will be expedited or not,” Ura says.
Originally, Hazel decided he couldn’t determine that the Trump administration’s citizenship question was the result of racial animus, Ura says. But after the Supreme Court’s decision, and after an analysis of Texas House districts found that districts favored the political leanings of Republicans and non-Hispanic whites, the case in Maryland is getting a second look.
“This new evidence is really what this dramatic turn of events has been based on,” Ura says, “and it’ll be at the center of this reconsideration in this case.”
Written by Caroline Covington.
