The Constitution does not direct that only citizens be enumerated, but it doesn't prohibit that practice, either.
Granted, those last nine words rather leave the door open as far as the details are concerned. The fact that some non-citizens, i.e. slaves, were to be enumerated as well - even if only counted as three-fifths of a person - is instructive, as is the use of the term "free persons" rather than "citizens". In today's social and political climate, asking the question WILL result in a major under-count of those "free persons", which defeats the census' stated purpose.The actual Enumeration shall be made within three Years after the first Meeting of the Congress of the United States, and within every subsequent Term of ten Years, in such Manner as they shall by Law direct.
More important as a legal argument, I believe, is that advocates of the scheme to add the citizenship question clearly do not have "clean hands" in the matter. There exists documented evidence - and there will be more when the Trump administration is forced to release it - that the addition of the question was motivated primarily, if not solely, by a desire to augment the political power of Republican and White voters, which would constitute proof that those persons who initiated it were acting unethically and in bad faith. (The situation is similar to that in which legislators in some states collected research as to which forms of ID were most frequently used by citizens of color, and then crafted legislation that would exclude as unacceptable those exact forms of ID.)
As for political districts, I have long been an advocate of their being drawn by a computer program, taking into account no factor whatsoever except for the number of registered voters within a geographic area. Drawing the boundaries by Party affiliation, race, or any other consideration is just wrong.
“Civilized men are more discourteous than savages because they know they can be impolite without having their skulls split, as a general thing.” - Robert E. Howard
"Only a rank degenerate would drive 1,500 miles across Texas and not eat a chicken fried steak." - Larry McMurtry
“Civilized men are more discourteous than savages because they know they can be impolite without having their skulls split, as a general thing.” - Robert E. Howard
"Only a rank degenerate would drive 1,500 miles across Texas and not eat a chicken fried steak." - Larry McMurtry
DGUtley (06-13-2019)
This question was on the census until the 1950's. Not sure how it would be considered illegal.
When Donald Trump said to protest “peacefully”, he meant violence.
When he told protesters to “go home”, he meant stay for an insurrection.
And when he told Brad Raffensperger to implement “whatever the correct legal remedy is”, he meant fraud.
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Here is Eastman taking on Wolf the leftist scholar. Eastman smokes him with facts and the law. Wolf even tried to lie about the question being on the Long form. Then like most leftists wanted to get to what Ross's motives were. Which has no bearing on the case.
Eastman: [00:05:16] Sure. Well, I would take issue a little bit with the phrasing of Justice Ginsburg question as Tom correctly noted. The citizenship question had been in place from 1820 to 1950 on the census form. What the Eisenhower administration did leading up to the 1960 census was separate the forms out to the short form that would go to every single household and the long form that would go to a subset of households, but they were both still census forms. They were both still aimed at obtaining the enumeration as required by the constitution every ten years. The long form continued to ask the citizenship question all the way up until 2000, and then that citizenship question was also added to the American Community Survey in 2006 under George W. Bush's administration, but not asked on the short form, long form either in 2010 under the Obama administration.
So what we have is the removal of the citizenship question entirely from the census forms for the first time in 2010. Secretary Ross has restored it to what it had been historically from 1820 all the way up until 2000 on one of the two enumeration census forms.
Well, I think so, but there's a preliminary question as well, and the Administrative Procedure Act more broadly also says that there is no, not even judicial review for any action, quote, “Committed to agency discretion by law,” close quote, and both the constitution, which sets out the Enumeration Clause in article one, section two, that there has to be an actual enumeration, quote, “In such manner as they, Congress, shall by law direct.” Then Congress has, by law, directed the enumeration under Title 13, Section 141 of the US code. They have delegated to the Secretary of Commerce the authority to conduct the census in such form and content as he may determine and quote, “To obtain such other census information as necessary.”
So the question is, is the elected head of the agency, or the duly appointed head of the agency by the elected president to make the decision, or is he bound by advice coming from unelected bureaucrats that are in the agency before he got there? This is a very important question for self-governance, because if the secretary can't reject the advice he's getting from unelected bureaucrats in the agency he's appointed the head, the elections don't matter anymore.
What we have here is a vintage non-delegation issue. I'm happy. If the court wants to strike down what the Secretary has done here because the statute itself is unconstitutionally delegating lawmaking power from Congress to the executive and revive the non-delegation doctrine as a separation of powers, important doctrine, then I'd be all for that. But look, the Supreme Court last struck down a statute for over-delegating lawmaking power to the executive in 1936, and it has indicated no willingness to revisit the death of the non-delegation doctrine since.
So what we have here is on the current law, did Congress delegate the power to Secretary of Commerce to decide what to ask on the census, and it clearly did in the statute I quoted earlier, Section 141 of Title 13. That's pretty unambiguous a delegation of power, and the Administrative Procedure Act is also pretty unambiguous. We don't even allow judicial review if the action was committed by Congress to agency discretion by law, which is pretty clearly the case here. I think that's one of the reasons why several of the Justices were saying, don't we owe a great deal of deference to the Secretary's determination here? In fact, under the APA, maybe so much deference that we ought not to even be considering this case.
The notion, though, that we can't ask about citizenship for who is going to be, for apportionment on who's going to decide our government really does completely alter the very nature of our republican institutions of government, which are grounded in consent, not on consent of the people the world over, but on consent that are people who are citizens in this body politic. The notion that that's somehow unconstitutional or ought to be problematic under the statute really shows how far the parties are removed from each other on the question of basic citizenship.
Well, and I noticed Tom didn't cite the statute that I cited earlier. The Enumeration Clause in Article 1, Section 2 says there should be an actual enumeration, quote, “In such manner as they, Congress, shall by law direct.” I think it's important to look at the law, which very unambiguously delegates the authority to determine how to conduct a census to the Secretary of Commerce, “In such form and content as he may determine.” That's a direct quote from the statute. So what he's done is add back in a question here about the content, and the content includes citizenship.
I think further proof of that is the other subclause in that constitutional text “Excluding Indians not taxed.” Now, that's a very odd way of getting there, but what they're talking about is we've got some people amongst our midst who are not part of our body politic, and we're not going to count them in the census. That was the example at the time. They put this specific rather than the general exception in, but I think the specific indicates that the numbers of the states were not intended to include people who were just merely passing through if they just happened to be here on the day the census takers came around.
So I'm fairly confident after listening to the oral argument and reading the briefs and knowing what the constitutional requirement is as well as the history of the census bureau, that the Supreme Court is going to uphold Secretary Ross's decision, and we'll have a census that will get back in the business of asking not just how many people are here, but are you here permanently or temporarily? We may like to try to figure that out as well, because I think it's critical, and also are you here as a member of our body politic, a citizen, or are you here as a non-citizen, because that's important for our policy judgments as well......snip~
https://constitutioncenter.org/debat...constitutional
Last edited by MMC; 06-13-2019 at 09:25 AM.
History does not long Entrust the care of Freedom, to the Weak or Timid!!!!! Dwight D. Eisenhower ~
Who is this "Wolf" whom you claim lied about something? As to the motives of those who want to restore the question to the form having "no bearing" - that may be your opinion, but it is not in keeping with American legal principles and precedents, which I believe is far more important. Ask DGUtley, if you can't bring yourself to believe me.
Last edited by Standing Wolf; 06-13-2019 at 10:45 AM.
“Civilized men are more discourteous than savages because they know they can be impolite without having their skulls split, as a general thing.” - Robert E. Howard
"Only a rank degenerate would drive 1,500 miles across Texas and not eat a chicken fried steak." - Larry McMurtry
Call your state legislators and insist they approve the Article V convention of States to propose amendments.
I pledge allegiance to the Constitution as written and understood by this nation's founders, and to the Republic it created, an indivisible union of sovereign States, with liberty and justice for all.
Did you read the link Wolfman.
John Eastman is the Henry Salvatori Professor of Law & Community Service at Chapman University’s Fowler School of Law. He is also a Senior Fellow and Director of the Center for Constitutional Jurisprudence at the Claremont Institute.
Tom Wolf is Counsel with the Democracy Program at the Brennan Center, where his work focuses on redistricting and the census. He was previously a member of the Supreme Court & Appellate group at Mayer Brown LLP, where his practice focused on constitutional litigation and legal strategy. He recently published “A Critical History of the United States Census and Citizenship Questions” in the Georgetown Law Journal.
He tried to say the question wasn't on the long form citing dates from early 19th Century. Then Eastman brought him back to reality from 1950 to present day. But then it is in keeping with legal principles and precedents. That Eastman brings forth.
Eastman: [00:17:03] Well, I think so, but there's a preliminary question as well, and the Administrative Procedure Act more broadly also says that there is no, not even judicial review for any action, quote, “Committed to agency discretion by law,” close quote, and both the constitution, which sets out the Enumeration Clause in article one, section two, that there has to be an actual enumeration, quote, “In such manner as they, Congress, shall by law direct.” Then Congress has, by law, directed the enumeration under Title 13, Section 141 of the US code. They have delegated to the Secretary of Commerce the authority to conduct the census in such form and content as he may determine and quote, “To obtain such other census information as necessary.”
Now, both of those things are pretty clearly committing to agency discretion the determination of what to include on the census. So under the APA, there might not even be the opportunity for judicial review. But let's get over that hurdle. One of the things that came out in the oral argument at the Supreme Court was whether we should be deposing Secretary Ross to find out what his true motives were or whether the review is limited to what he actually said in the record. I think the court came down pretty clearly that on an Administrative Procedure Act review, we look at what the record is. We don't look behind to a legislator's motives or anything like that. That would be opening up a hornet's nest that the Supreme Court has repeatedly shied away from. I think they're going to do that here as well.
So the question is, is the elected head of the agency, or the duly appointed head of the agency by the elected president to make the decision, or is he bound by advice coming from unelected bureaucrats that are in the agency before he got there? This is a very important question for self-governance, because if the secretary can't reject the advice he's getting from unelected bureaucrats in the agency he's appointed the head, the elections don't matter anymore.
So I think it's an extremely important question, and just judging from the questions we heard at oral argument, I suspect the Supreme Court at least a five member majority of the Supreme Court, perhaps more, is going to side with Secretary Ross here and say, look. You had some input from the bureaucrats in your department that said this might lead to a lower response rate, but you weighed that lower response rate with the ability to mitigate against that by more aggressive efforts on second and third tries to get the information the enumeration needs, and the importance of gathering information about citizenship and where citizens are located so that if any jurisdiction actually wants to based their reapportionment on citizens, which by the way, the consent theory of government set out in the Declaration of Independence would seem to require, then we ought to be able to do that. I think that's where the court's going to lead, and I think under any standard under APA review, the reasons he gave, the formal reasons he gave for the decision here easily pass muster......snip~
Last edited by MMC; 06-13-2019 at 10:57 AM.
History does not long Entrust the care of Freedom, to the Weak or Timid!!!!! Dwight D. Eisenhower ~
I won't answer it anyway. It's not a big deal.
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Pick your enemies carefully.
Call your state legislators and insist they approve the Article V convention of States to propose amendments.
I pledge allegiance to the Constitution as written and understood by this nation's founders, and to the Republic it created, an indivisible union of sovereign States, with liberty and justice for all.