June 27, 2019

Oops he did it again; John Roberts Spikes Census Question

Timothy Birdnow

I was worried when George W. Bush appointed John Roberts to the Supreme Court. I argued then that Roberts had been around Washington for decades and had a very low profile, and that the Democrats were not at all opposed to him. You cannot be hanging around anywhere for a long period and not make enemies - especially if you are a person in a position of authority in a place like D.C. I knew that if the Democrats didn't howl over Roberts he was not one of us.

While Roberts has not gone completely native, he has become the Anthony Kennedy-esque swing vote on the Court.

Oops; he did it again!

Not content with stiffing America over health insurance and other issues, J.R. has now sided with the Leftists on the Court and issued a stay on the Trump Administration plan to ask about citizenship on the Census form.

From Reuters:

The U.S. Supreme Court handed President Donald Trump a significant defeat on Thursday, ruling that his administration did not give an adequate explanation for its plan to include a contentious citizenship question on the 2020 census and preventing its addition to the decennial survey for now.

The justices - in a 5-4 decision with Chief Justice John Roberts joining the court's four liberals in the majority and writing the ruling - upheld part of a federal judge's ruling barring the question in a victory for a group of states including New York and immigrant rights organizations that had challenged the plan.

Now, this question was asked until 1950 of everyone, than was asked of a percentage of the public until 2000. There is considerable historical precedent. And the President is tasked with the Census - not Congress, and not the Courts. He pretty much has carte blanche on how to do this, or is supposed to have the authority, at any rate.

The need for a citizenship question is obvious and urgent. America has millions of illegal aliens - anywhere from 12 (the official number) to as many as 40 million. If we count these people as citizens we artificially boost the numbers in certain areas, giving extra Congressional seats to places that are not entitled to them. This is a direct threat to the integrity of the electoral process and to the balance of power in Congress. That this question should be asked is a no-brainer. Also, legal aliens need to be differentiated from citizens. As of 2017 there were 44.5 MILLION immigrants in the United States - a number higher than the entire population of Canada (which is 37.41 million). We need to know who has citizenship and who does not.

It's strange; the Left is always complaining about the need for "every vote to count" and their desire to protect "democracy" yet they won't even allow the Census to check legal voting status. How does every vote count when you don't even know who has a right to vote?

And SCOTUS has spiked the ball here. Oh, they left the door open, because they couldn't find a way to slam it shut, but they did so in a manner designed to prevent the Trump policy from being implemented before the next election. This is to give the Democratic candidate a leg up in stealing the election. Cute trick. Roberts either fell for it, or was complicit.

The Court did rule the President has the authority to ask this question,. They simply decided to deny Trump the right. I cannot imagine the contortions that went on in their minds.

More from the article:

Roberts said that under a U.S. law called the Administrative Procedure Act, the federal government is required to give a reasoned explanation for its actions.

"Accepting contrived reasons would defeat the purpose of the enterprise," Roberts wrote.

Roberts said that the explanation provided by the government was "more of a distraction."

This is the same tortured logic Roberts employed in National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius, 567 U.S. 519 (2012), where he squeezed Obamacare threw the narrow gate of American jurisprudence by rewriting the law. In this case he is simply ignoring the very reason the Administration is implementing the rule change because he doesn't want to allow this. It is not Roberts' job to determine what is in the heart of Donald Trump, but rather whether his actions are Constitutional. We are not supposed to be a nation of men but of laws.

This illustrates how important it is to put Originalists on the Court. The next President will get to appoint several Justices, and they MUST be Originalists. If we hadn't had eight  years of Barack Obama this would have been a mute point. But the Court sits on the edge of a knife, and John Robetts - Bush's folly - did serious damage to America and the Constitution.

In a saner world the Administration would go forward with their plan and tell SCOTUS to enforce their ruling themselves. But we don't live in a sane world.

Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at 10:35 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
Post contains 849 words, total size 6 kb.

1 Roberts has used that same argument several times when ruling against Trump, usually when Trump is reversing an Obama executive order.
Clearly, somebody knows where Roberts buried a body. Whoever it is knows that knowledge, and the power it conveys, must be used judiciously (so to speak) or it becomes obvious and loses its value. But somebody is holding something over Roberts' head.

Posted by: Bill H at June 27, 2019 02:13 PM (vMiSr)

2 Bill, I see you and I think much alike on this. I am fairly convinced Roberts is compromised - which is why the Democrats were not unhappy with his nomination in the first place. As you say, this hold on him has to be used judiciously, to avoid people figuring it out, but it's real and it's there and I have no doubt whenever push comes to shove Roberts will side with the Left.

We need several more good Justices to make his vote irrelevant.

Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at June 28, 2019 06:29 AM (pCGtZ)

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