New York Attorney General Letitia James joined with the ACLU on Friday night in filing a motion in the Southern District of New York to block the Trump administration from delaying the printing of the 2020 census questionnaire or changing it to include a citizenship question.
In its motion, James and the civil liberties group argue that the Supreme Court has already ordered that the questionnaire couldn’t be altered after June 30.
The White House had previously supported that hard deadline, but now wants more time to change the questionnaire, given last week’s Supreme Court decision indefinitely delaying a citizenship question.
“What is clear is that Defendants are out of time for a ‘do over,'” James said in a press release.
“Defendants’ ‘heads I win, tails we’ll see’ approach undermines confidence in both their ability to conduct the 2020 Census and public confidence in the courts and the rule of law.”
The ACLU accused the administration of “lawlessness” in its own statement.
“The Trump administration repeatedly argued the census forms could not be altered after June 30. They’ve now changed their tune because the Supreme Court ruled against them. They can’t have it both ways. Trump’s lawlessness will not go unanswered,” Dale Ho, director of the ACLU’s Voting Rights Project, said.
Trump on Friday said he’s considering invoking an executive order to include the citizenship question on the census.
“We’re thinking about doing that. We have four or five ways we can do it, it’s one of the ways that we’re thinking about doing it. So we’ll see what happens,” the president said before boarding Marine One for a trip to his golf club in New Jersey for the weekend.
“You need it for a reason. You need it for Congress for districting, you need it for appropriations. Where are the funds going, how many people are there, are they citizens or not citizens? You need it for many reasons,” the president replied when asked why the question was important.




