The U.S. Supreme Court just handed down a 6-3 ruling on President Donald Trump’s unconstitutional attempt to exclude undocumented persons from being included in the Census. The Court sent the case back down to a lower court that originally disagreed with the administration’s claim it had the right to not include those without citizenship or other official status from being counted when Congress redraws districts.
“This ruling will likely render the case moot, as the Trump administration likely misses the deadline for submitting alternative apportionment numbers,” election law expert Rick Hasen writes.
But NBC News is calling it “a win for Trump.”
Regardless, the ruling does not let the conservative justices off the hook. The U.S. Constitution clearly states all “persons” residing with the nation’s borders are to be counted.
Here’s the word salad they came up with as the majority opinion – ignoring the very unambiguous language the founders included in the Constitution.
“At present, this case is riddled with contingencies and speculation that impede judicial review. The President, to be sure, has made clear his desire to exclude aliens without lawful status from the apportionment base. But the President qualified his directive by providing that the Secretary should gather information ‘to the extent practicable’ and that aliens should be excluded ‘to the extent feasible,'” they wrote.
“Any prediction how the Executive Branch might eventually implement this general statement of policy is ‘no more than conjecture’ at this time.”
As if President Trump has not acted exactly as he’s threatened to most of the time.
With just 33 days until Joe Biden is sworn in as the nation’s 46th president, conservatives on the U.S. Supreme Court are still pretending that predicting what Trump will do is just “conjecture,” when he repeatedly threatens to do something.
The three liberals on the Court clearly are doing their jobs, concluding that “the Government acknowledges it is working to achieve an allegedly illegal goal, this Court should not decline to resolve the case simply because the Government speculates that it might not fully succeed.”
This is a breaking news and developing story.