Demographics Reporter
Washington Post
By Tara Bahrampour @ WashPost:
A federal judge has ordered that the 2020 Census count continue until Oct. 31, blocking for now the government’s efforts to complete the survey in time to deliver apportionment data to the president by the end of the year.
The ruling late Thursday night by U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh of the Northern District of California follows a tense week in which the government appeared to try to circumvent a preliminary injunction against ending the count early.
After a surprise announcement Monday that the bureau was moving the end date by just five days, from Sept. 30 to Oct. 5, plaintiffs in the case asked Koh to provide clarification of her earlier order and other sanctions.
Census Bureau announces new ‘target date’ of Oct. 5 to finish 2020 Census count
Rejecting the government’s argument that the request was “an attempt to radically modify the preliminary injunction,” Koh’s new ruling clarified that the end date for collection must revert to Oct. 31, as the bureau had originally planned.
It also ordered that on Friday, the government must send text messages to all Census Bureau employees notifying them of the Oct. 31 end date, and that Director Steven Dillingham must file a declaration by Monday that “unequivocally confirms Defendants’ ongoing compliance with the Injunction Order and details the steps Defendants have taken to prevent future violations of the Injunction Order.”
The suit, brought by the National Urban League and a group of counties, cities and others, said a truncated schedule would irreparably harm communities that might be undercounted.
On Friday, Kristen Clarke, president and executive director of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, which is arguing the case, said, “Once again, the court has stopped the administration in its tracks.” Noting that some states with significant minority populations still face an undercount, she added, “Much work remains to be done to achieve an accurate census count that satisfies constitutional standards.”
The Justice and Commerce departments did not respond to requests for comment.
The government had appealed Koh’s Sep. 24 injunction to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit, which denied the appeal Tuesday.
Appeals judges uphold lower court’s order to continue census count
Nevertheless, Koh found that after her injunction, the government continued to tell employees to wind down operations by Sept. 30, and the Census Bureau’s website, “which is updated daily,” continued for four days after her injunction to say that data collection would end that day.
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Read the rest of the article at the link.
So, when is Judge Koh going to jail Wilber Ross, his census toadies, Billy the Bigot, and the DOJ lawyers who continue to defend clearly lawless, dishonest, and contemptuous actions in court? Why have corrupt Federal officials and their lawyers become exempt from ethical requirements and, in the case of lawyers, their role as “officers of the court?”
PWS
10-05-20
