A very long time. The question is two things. Injuries arenk the not subject to apa review and secondly, the secretary act acted well within his discretion. Why was the citizen question question citizen ship dropped . What was the reason for dropping it . In 1960, it did not appear on anything. That was on the longform survey and that was part of a larger process that moved a larger number of questions often short form into the long form. Form. Longer have the long they generally wanted to move general francisco well, they generally wanted to move all of the demographic questions onto the long form. We no longer have a long form. And the problems with using the American Community survey are well known. So you basically Justice Ginsburg but there was nothing there was nothing in 1960 to the effect that the Census Bureau found that putting it on the short form would depress the count on count of noncitizens . Nothing like that . General francisco well well, sure, your honor, but thats because they thought that, along with all of the other demographic questions in the census, had an overall impact of on on on overall census accuracy. And that underscores why we dont think this is really subject to judicial review, because really what youre saying is that Congress Courts would have to review every question on the long form to determine if the informational value of the question outweighed the impact on census accuracy, because, at the end of the day, if you add any particular question onto the census, youre always trading off information and accuracy. And 141 a doesnt provide courts with a basis for evaluating that determination. So thats why we think this isnt subject to apa review at all stop apa review at all. But we also think that the respondents dont have standing here because theyre injured if and only if, first, you have thirdparty action; secondly, you have thirdparty action thats illegal; and, third, that thirdparty action is based on speculation. Chief Justice Roberts on the on the illegality, is is that a a predictive factor . In other words, do we, as our cases have often said, do not assume illegal behavior in establishing standing, but is that simply predictive . In other words, we doubt people are going to engage on a regular basis in illegal behavior, and, therefore, we dont think their injury is is tangible or likely, or is there Something Special about the fact that its illegal activity . General francisco well, i think, your honor, in in the courts past cases, it has often been used as a predictive factor, but i also think that when you put it all together, it breaks the chain of causation for article iii causation purposes. Chief Justice Roberts i mean, it is true that if people go 60 miles an hour in a 55mileanhour zone, thats unlawful. But you wouldnt say that theyre not going to do that in forming Public Policy general francisco and i agree, your honor, and thats not our argument here. I think that clapper is a good analogy. In clapper, it was quite clear that the plaintiffs in that case suffered an injury in fact, because they declined to use their cell phones to communicate with their clients and their clients declined to use their cell phones to communicate with them out of a fear that their phone calls would be intercepted. No question that there was an injury in fact. But what the court held was that that injury wasnt fairly attributable to the government because it was caused by the plaintiffs fear Justice Sotomayor i i im sorry, youre talking general francisco that the government would intercept their calls. Justice sotomayor youre talking proximate cause, which weve never used. General francisco no, your honor. Justice sotomayor weve used determinate or coercive effect. In wayfair, one of the reasons we found the stores, not the states, to be injured is because consumers fail to pay taxes, an illegality under the law. And we said thats why the states were being harmed. In naacp versus alabama, we held the naacp had standing, even though it was their members who would be injured by other people, an illegality, harassment, but as the just as chief Justice Roberts said, it is predictable. Theres no doubt that people will respond less general francisco uhhuh. Justice sotomayor because of the census. That has been proven in study after study. One census surveyor described an incident where he walked into a home, started asking citizenship, and the person stopped and left his home, leaving the census surveyor sitting there. So, if youre talking about prediction, this is about 100 that people will answer less, so but i dont know that it is prediction. It is an action by the will be a cause of this, not proximate necessarily, but that cause will cause harm. General francisco right, two general francisco right, two responses, your honor. First, were not talking about proximate cause. Were talking about an analysis that was similar to what this court used in the clapper case, where the clappers said that even though there was injury in fact, even though the governments actions were in a very real sense a butfor cause of that injury in fact, it wasnt fair to attribute that to the government because it was based on the plaintiffs speculation that the government would intercept their telephone calls. Justice sotomayor but this is not chief Justice Roberts you Justice Sotomayor the plaintiff acting; this is third parties acting. General francisco yes, and that makes it, we think, even worse because the courts cases have generally said you dont rely on thirdparty standing. But chief Justice Roberts you you said you had two responses . General francisco yeah. The second is that on naacp against alabama, that was a case where the naacp was being directly regulated by the statute that they were challenging. They were forced to disclose their private membership lists, and that was their injury. There was nobody that stood in between them and the disclosure of their private injury private membership list. But turning to the agency reviewability argument, there really is nothing in 141 a that provides courts with a basis to review this decision. The language is quite similar to what the court addressed in webster. Every the addition of any particular demographic question is always going to be a tradeoff between information and accuracy. And id id id urge you to look to the 2000 long form census that had highly detailed questions about not just citizenship but things like your commuting time, how many bedrooms you had in your house, whether you suffered from Certain Health conditions. Under respondents position, courts would have to review each one of those questions to determine whether the informational value of that question outweighed any potential impact Justice Breyer on the main form general francisco on census accuracy. Justice breyer on the main form on the main form, suppose the secretary puts in a question about sexual orientation. Suppose he puts a question in about arrest record. Suppose he says, im going to have the whole survey in french. General francisco uhhuh. Justice breyer in other words, we have no role to play no matter how extreme . General francisco your honor, you certainly do have a role to play, and i think Justice Breyer all right. Well, then thats the question. General francisco and i think your examples Justice Breyer thats the question. General francisco yeah. Justice breyer thats the question. And in this case, theres a statute, and the statute says that the secretary at least on this form, the main form, he shall use administrative records, unless it says to the maximum extent possible. Dont ask direct questions. Use administrative records, because they want to keep it short. General francisco right. Justice breyer to the maximum extent possible. So i have two rather technical questions in what i think is the heart of this case. Its a technical case. All right. The first question is the secretary, i gather from the record and weve looked at it, my office, pretty carefully is told by the Census Bureau in three studies that if you ask this question on the regular form, you will get back fewer answers. And they extrapolated to do that from the other surveys and so forth, and those extrapolations, you know, holding for everything constant, showed that the noncitizens often didnt say they were noncitizens. General francisco uhhuh. Justice breyer and some didnt return it at all. Now i havent seen any evidence to the contrary. So im asking you where the evidence is on that. General francisco sure. Justice breyer and as to the second, same question, the second is that several surveys, including dr. Abowd, told the secretary mr. Secretary, if you add the question to the census, the short form, the direct form, you will discover that even the information you want about citizenship is worse than if you just look at the administrative record. Now how can that be . General francisco sure. Justice breyer well, a, they say 13 Million People, itll be a wash because you wont get information either way. They wont return it and you dont have it over on the administrative part. But, as to 22 million, which you highlight in your brief general francisco yeah. Justice breyer what about them . And as to them, what dr. Abowd says he says, and i saw it in the record, he says, as to those 22 million, ill tell you what, you just look to the census returns and youre going to find it not that accurate because some are not going to tell the truth. General francisco right. Justice breyer so go look at the administrative returns, and they wont be there, but well model them. Now the question is, which is more accurate as to citizenship . General francisco sure. Justice breyer the models over here on the administrative part or the answer to the questions on the census part . And here is what dr. Abowd says 22 million, hes asked, if you follow your practice, youd use a survey response, not model it; is that right . Thats right. And in your opinion, that would be less accurate than if you just went with modeling over on the administrative part . Thats correct. And the conclusion of the Census Bureau remains that adding the question over here, even if you use the administrative part too, produces worse citizen worse data on citizenship than just using the administrative data alone . Thats the question. General francisco yep. Justice breyer answer from the expert thats correct. So i read that, and, you know, the judges below have listed 14 other examples or 40 other examples of many other examples and and but thats the most direct. So where in the decision memo did the secretary address that problem . General francisco so, sure, your honor. Justice breyer both problems. There are two problems. General francisco yes, yes. And id like to address that evidentiary issue first and then i would like to come back to your question about section 6 c of the statute as well. If you look at the joint appendix page 148, the the Census Bureau staff specifically told the secretary and here im quoting from it that it cannot quantify the relative magnitude of the errors across alternatives and hes talking about alternatives c and d at this time. So what he was saying was that i dont know if the Response Error from asking the question is going to be more or less than the prediction error if i Justice Breyer no, he said just what you said. He said, i cannot quantify it. General francisco sure. Justice breyer and that means he cant put scientific numbers. Of course, they said that they wanted two years to test it, but they cant quantify it. But we do have three studies, and those studies look at what happened when you asked this question before, and what happened when you asked this question before general francisco right. Justice breyer is the Response Rate fell. General francisco and so, if i could complete my answer, what the bureau staff told him was that they didnt know which one would be better or worse. So what the secretary Justice Sotomayor im sorry. Justice breyer where does it say that . Where does it say that . Chief Justice Roberts maybe you could, if you dont mind, maybe you could complete your answer. General francisco sure. That is specifically, your honor, at page 148 of the joint appendix, where it specifically says and explains that it cannot quantify the relative magnitude of the errors across the alternatives, alternatives c and d, at this time because it didnt know if the Response Errors from asking the question would be more or less than the prediction errors from the model. So what the secretary knew was two basic things Justice Sotomayor im sorry. Have prediction models. They say multiple times, at least three, if not more, that alternative d, which was the secretarys alternative, and their alternative c, so everybodys clear c was simply to use administrative records, d was the secretarys idea of adding the question to the survey plus administrative records. And on the prediction models, which is what scientists can do, each and every time they said d would be less accurate than c. Now youre asking general francisco except for the one time where it mattered, your honor, in the key differences Justice Sotomayor but comparative general francisco memo, where they specifically said that they did not know if c was better than d. And so what the secretary knew Justice Sotomayor no, no, no, no, thats not what he said. General francisco that is exactly what he said. Justice sotomayor he said you cant youre the words comparative errors have a different meaning than youre giving it. Comparative errors are im comparing this type of error to that type of error and what they compare each other to. You cant do that to a scientific certainty. But you can have predictive models, which is what they did, and they general francisco right. Justice sotomayor showed you, time and again they told you, you add the survey question, its going to be less accurate than just relying on administrative records. General francisco your honor, i Justice Sotomayor so how do you how do you take or pluck out of what they say in one sentence, if youre the secretary, and rely on that one sentence and ignore the wealth of statistics, graphs, testimony, proof, control studies of how how these Response Rates came about and decide that that one sentence is enough to justify ignoring Everything Else . General francisco because, your honor, i respectfully disagree with your reading of the administrations record. If you read through the key differences memo, what the bureau staff is telling to the secretary and, look, theres no question that the bureau staff preferred not to have this question on the census but what they were telling the secretary was that they couldnt tell which model would be more or less accurate. But they did give him specific information. Justice kagan but, general general francisco they told him that Justice Kagan please finish. General francisco they told him that if he actually asked the question for 30 for 22. 2 Million People for whom no administrative records existed, he would have got actual answers at 98 accuracy. And that the alternative, their preferred alternative, was to use a statistical model to estimate citizenship, not just for the 22. 2 million, but for 35 million, but they had not yet constructed that model and didnt know what the error rate in that model would be. Justice kagan but i i general francisco and so the Justice Kagan i think, general, i mean, 98 sounds awfully high, but its kind of irrelevant too. The question is whether, if you used the model, it would be greater than 98 . It would be 99. 5 . General francisco right. Justice kagan because then the secretary would have no basis for saying that you should use the question rather than the model. And as to that, as i think my colleagues are suggesting, there is a bottom line conclusion from the Census Bureau, and the bottom line conclusion is that alternative d, which is the proposal that the secretary eventually took, would still have all the negative cost and quality implications of alternative b, which was simply adding the question alone, and would result in poorer quality citizenship data than alternative c, which is just using the administrative records plus the modeling. So there is a bottom line conclusion from the Census Bureau. And it seems as though what the secretary needs is some i mean, a secretary can deviate general francisco uhhuh. Justice kagan from his experts recommendations and from his experts bottom line conclusions. General francisco right. Justice kagan but the secretary needs reasons to do that, and i searched the record and i dont see any reason. General francisco sure. And, your honor, so i want to just finish what i was saying instantly before because i think it it responds to your question, and then id like to expand directly in response to your question. What the secretary concluded was, in the face of uncertainty, hed rather go with the bird in a hand and ask the question at 98 percent accuracy than an unknown and untested statistical model. And thats, after all, the same preference that the enumeration clause itself makes, a prefer preference for actual counting over estimation, because actual counting is less efficient. Justice sotomayor but not census Justice Kagan well, if i can just add to the question, and general francisco but to go to go to your question yes. Justice kagan and let me just add to it a bit because you said, you know, an unknown and untested statistical model, but here are his experts in the Census Bureau saying we are confident that we can produce a statistical model that will produce more accurate bottom line results, and and, again, this bottom line conclusion is the same. They know what kind of statistical models they can build. In this is the bottom line conclusion. And where is the reason that the secretary gives as to why he rejects that . General francisco so there are a couple of reasons, your honor. First of all, although they had a high confidence that they could create a good statistical model, they were not able to tell him that they thought that that model would be any better or worse an estimation. They never were able to say that would it would beat that 98 number. So, in the face of that uncertainty, he reasonably chose Justice Kagan i think what i read you is them saying that they could beat the 98 percent number. General francisco no, your honor, i dont think thats what theyre saying there. I think what theyre saying there is that if you ask the Citizenship Question, it will make the model a little bit less general francisco so, your honor, if you look at secretary rosss decision memo, the the decision memo in the petitioners appendix, i would look to a couple of things. First of all, i would look to his discussion on pages 555a with the problems with administrative records. The bureau is still evolving its use of administrative records, and the bureau does not yet have complete administrative records data set for the entire population. And that points out why he heritage reporting corporation 98 percent accuracy, because you simply didnt have administrative records for 35 Million People, and the bureau had not yet figured out how to do that estimation. He then goes on to say on that same page, more than 10 percent of the american population, some 25 million votingage people, would need to have their citizen age imputed by the Census Bureau. And so he was making clear that hed rather go with actual counting than imputation. And he pointed out that by proceeding with his preferred course this is at page 556a of the petitioners appendix this may eliminate the need for the Census Bureau to have to impute an answer for millions of people, specifically about 22. 2 Justice Kagan but just do not appear in the secretarys the fact that sg lawyers can come up with 60 pages of explanation for a decision, thats all post hoc rationalization. The question is, what did the secretary say . Where did he say it . When did he say it . What does it mean, other than just ipse dixit and conclusions . General francisco sure. Your your honor, i im tempted to pocket the compliment and sit down, but i wont do that. laughter. general francisco i think the secretary fully acknowledged that there was an upside to the request, and the upside was the one the department of justice set forth in his letter, that having citizenship data would help improve Voting Rights act enforcement. He fully understood there was an alternative using administrative records, and he analyzed that alternative in the language that i just read to Justice Breyer, and he understood there was a downside, that adding the Citizenship Question would decrease the number of selfResponse Rates. But he found two things with respect to that. First, he found and all of this is in his letter that he could mitigate that to at least a certain extent with followup heritage reporting corporation theyre trying to basis on American Community service. The department of justice wanted to get all of the information from the same data. All caps from the same place. Doj couldwe know that could not rely on the administrative records . The one thing that we do now is secretary went to doj and ask them for help. They said no. They told them to shop at the dhs. Go back tos said doj. , the people to doj they are in touch with. Theyre not the highest level. The secretary of commerce speaks to the head of doj at the time. Says we willhe doj give you anything you need. They do a letter. Both the letter said the acs is not enough. Ist the letter does not say that you supplemented with , it tellstive records you to maximize the extent possible that it is reported. How many there are and nobody doubts there would be less people recorded. That is a maximum need of the census report. Not citizenship. Lets not confuse the two things. Enumeration is how many people reside here. Not how many people are citizens. That is what the survey is supposed to figure out. Doj needs citizenship. Asks doj, notu the secretary to discuss why they are not good enough, they say they dont need to. Sequence, howat does the secretary know the answer general francisco sure. Justice sotomayor to that question . General francisco sure. So a couple of responses to that, your honor. Im going to start with the 6 c issue because i know that was of interest to Justice Breyer as well. And under 6 c , under my my friends on the other sides position, you actually couldnt even ask the Citizenship Question on the American Community survey. And you also couldnt ask about sex and age on the census itself since all of that information is all also available in administrative records. But the reason why administrative records are insufficient under 6 c for any of these purposes is for the simple reason that you dont have them for 35 Million People. In terms of the department of justices request and the Census Bureaus alternative proposal, it simply wasnt responsive to the department of justices request for two reasons. Administrative records didnt solve the problem that the department of justice was trying to solve, which was getting all of their cvap data from the same source and covering the same time period. Administrative records come from a different database and cover a different time period than all of the other information used to construct citizenship voting age population. Justice sotomayor that doesnt tell you why its not good enough. They may have wanted something. General francisco sure. Justice sotomayor but they would then be introduced with one database that has been, according to the chief statistician of the bureau, introducing multiple layers of uncertainty. General francisco right. Justice sotomayor uncertainty about or an undercount of people because they already say that undercounts going to be at a minimum 5. 8, less people are going to respond. Youre going to have a lesser number that are going to group with the administrative youre going to have 9. 5 million that conflict between their answer and the administrative records. And we have to change the bureaus use of that information to be able to use the administrative record. And the secretary doesnt ask, if we change that, what else will it affect . General francisco right. Justice sotomayor so he doesnt know that. And we now have error in the unreporting population of at least 500,000. So something the chief statistician of the bureau tells us is, unlike our simpler prior models, this introduces more uncertainty at every single level of the calculus. And so that data is going to be more suspect, more prone to cross to less reliability, and less accurate. And so, if the bureau if the department of justice refused to listen to that, how can the secretary conclude that hes complying with 6 c fully . Because it says to the maximum extent possible, and how can you be possible if you dont even ask why . This seems like he thought of something, i want to add a Citizenship Question, i dont know why, but this is a solution in search of a problem. Ive got to find a problem that fits what i want to do. General francisco so, your honor, theres a whole lot in that question, but i think i will start with where you ended. And if you really think 6 c is a problem, then we really cannot ask the Citizenship Question on the American Community survey since that is just as subject to 6 c as the census is. Justice sotomayor no, what it says what it says is to the maximum extent possible. General francisco and here the secretary is using the administrative records to the maximum extent possible because hes combining them. Justice sotomayor but the acs is not the survey. General francisco hes combining them with the administrative records and the selfresponses and using administrative records where theyre available, using selfresponses at 98 percent accuracy Justice Sotomayor but the problem general francisco where administrative records are not available. Justice sotomayor but the problem is you cant confuse the survey, which is really the question of 6 c general francisco no. Justice sotomayor or the focus. General francisco its not. Justice sotomayor because general francisco 6 c applies to all census instruments, not just the census. It fully applies to the American Community survey. And it likewise applies Justice Sotomayor but the acs is not used the acs is not used for the citizenship purpose. You already said why it wasnt. General francisco but, your honor, your question your question is about 6 c . 6 c applies to the acs and it applies to the census. And sex and age information, which we ask on the census, is also available in administrative records. Indeed, administrative records are more accurate with respect to sex and age because, presumably, your birth date and your sex dont change over the course of time, whereas your citizenship status does. So, if you really think that 6 c is a problem, we cant ask it on the acs and we cant ask sex and age on the census, so thats why i think that is plainly wrong. It really does boil down to whether the secretarys judgment here is a reasonable one. And in the face of two competing possibilities, either asking the question, getting answers for twothirds of the people for whom no administrative records existed, at 98 percent accuracy, or using an estimation model that had not yet been created and had an unknown error rate, the secretary reasonably chose to go Justice Kagan but just general francisco with the bird in the hand. Justice kagan general, just going back to Justice Kavanaughs simple question about why the secretary thought that there was a need for this data, and then part of what Justice Sotomayor was talking about was that it did really seem like the secretary was shopping for a need. Goes to the Justice Department. Justice Department Says we dont need anything. Goes to dhs. Dhs says they dont need anything. Goes back to the Justice Department. Makes it clear that hes going to put in a call to the attorney general. Finally, the Justice Department comes back to him and says okay, we can give you what you want. So you cant read this record without sensing that this this need is a contrived one. Nobody had there have been lots of assistant attorney general in the Civil Rights Division that have never made a plea for this kind of data. And and just the way this went back and forth, i guess id like an answer to that simple question. General francisco yeah. Sure. And i have two responses, your honor. And then, if i may, id like to reserve the remainder of my time for rebuttal. First, i think it is quite common for cabinet secretaries to come into office with ideas and inclinations to discuss with their staff and discuss with their colleagues whether there is a legal and policy basis for that inclination. Secondly, theres no evidence in this record that the secretary would have asked this question had the department of justice not requested it. And theres no evidence in this record that the secretary didnt believe that the department of justice actually wanted this information to improve Voting Rights act enforcement. Chief Justice Roberts thank you, general. General underwood. Ms. Underwood mr. Chief justice, and may it please the court the secretary decided to add this question about citizenship to the 2020 census although the record before him contained uncontradicted and strong evidence that it will cause a decline in the Response Rate of noncitizens and hispanics, to the detriment of the states and localities where they live. He gave three reasons for the decision, and none of them can survive apa review. One, he said there was inadequate evidence of an effect on the Response Rate. But that is flatly contrary to the record. He said he could dismiss or discount any such effect because nonresponse is an illegal act. But that is an irrational and impermissible factor to consider on this question. And he said that adding the question would help Voting Rights enforcement. But that claim is unsupported by the record as well. Chief Justice Roberts do you do you think it wouldnt help Voting Rights enforcement . The cvap, citizen voting age population, is the critical element in Voting Rights enforcement, and this is getting citizen information. Ms. Underwood well, as we have as has been discussed at length in the during the previous argument, the evidence before him was that it would not give better citizenship information than that its the 22 million that the government points to, the 22 million whose citizenship information will be either modeled or the result of the answer to a census question. Justice ginsburg was there anything that showed that the department would have been aided in either past cases or cases on the drawing board . Any case . Ms. Underwood there was not. And what id like to point out is that the comparison should be to using administrative records. The department of justice letter taken at face value says the old acs survey data that weve been using is inadequate and we need an improvement over that. The Census Bureau produced this answer, which is we can do this by linking the existing census information to administrative records. The department of justice never commented on that. The department of justice actually declined to meet with the Census Bureau people who wanted to meet about it. So there was nothing before the secretary to say that this survey this census information would be an improvement there was no comparison at all from the department of justice about whether this would be an improvement or not. It seems to me that at least with so much question about whether this information would be better or worse than the the use of modeling from administrative records, the secretary had an obligation to find out the answer to that question. Justice kavanaugh what if the answer was uncertain . Ms. Underwood well, if the answer is uncertain, then it is hard to invoke that as a reason. Now we get back to the cost in the enumeration. That is, if the if its unclear, we think its worse. But, if its just unclear whether this question will improve Voting Rights enforcement, that is not sufficient to pay the cost of the steep decline in the enumeration because the enumeration is, after all, the primary purpose of the census. Justice alito well, on the modeling chief Justice Roberts well, is that go ahead. Justice alito on the modeling, there was a lot of talk during the first part of the argument about i think its 22. 6 Million People who it would it is predicted would answer the Citizenship Question and as to whom there is not administrative data. And there was an estimate that those answers would be 98 percent accurate. And the comparison then has to be between that 98 percent predicted accuracy rate and whatever the accuracy rate would be for the model. And is there anything in the administrative record that shows that the model was tested and that it was possible to extract a a predicted error rate for the model . Ms. Underwood what we have what we have is that this the model hadnt been generated, but what we have is the Census Bureau saying this is like other modeling that we routinely do. Were confident that we can do it. Justice alito so, if the secretary has to choose between two things, and, on one, the secretary knows theres a 98 percent accuracy rate, and as to the other, the Census Bureau says were going to create a model, and we dont know how we cant give you any statistics, but trust us, its going to be more accurate than 98 percent, is it arbitrary and capricious for the secretary to say, ill go with the 98 percent because thats a known quantity . Ms. Underwood if there were no cost to the enumeration, that would be a different question. But, when there is this much uncertainty, then it is arbitrary and capricious to take that kind of risk Justice Breyer i dont understand sorry. Ms. Underwood with the enumeration. Justice breyer i dont understand uncertainty. I thought the 98 percent of course, its 98 percent. Most people are citizens. Ms. Underwood right. Justice breyer the people who are citizens are not going to you know, theyll say theyre citizens. All youd ever expect are a few percent who are not citizens. Then i have on pages j joint appendix 882 through 884 mr. Abowds testimony where he unequivocally says three times that in in not 98 percent in respect to those people who are not citizens, the administrative model will be more accurate than just asking the census question, and if you add the census question, then you look to it for the answer, you will discover that you are less accurate in respect to noncitizens. Now he says that. Thats why i asked the solicitor general what is their contrary to that, and he gave me things to look at. And i would say the most contrary thing, which i want to ask you about, is dr. Abowd, at the trial, said, theres no credible quantitative evidence that the addition of a Citizenship Question will affect the accuracy of the count. All right . Thats what he said. Ms. Underwood yes. Justice breyer now im sure in their reply brief they pointed right to that. You cant simply ignore it. And so i want to hear what your answer is to that, which the government says is contrary evidence. Ms. Underwood if you look at that testimony in context, it is perfectly clear that what he is saying is that he didnt have enough evidence for a firm quantitative statement, meeting scientific standards. He actually defined the term credible in quantitative evidence. And if youll bear with me, he he said its evidence that is specifically related to the insertion of a Citizenship Question into the otherwise planned 2020 census that identifies the Citizenship Question itself as the likely or one of the causal elements associated with changes in the outcomes and that would stand up to extensive peer review within the Census Bureau and with the scientific community. Chief Justice Roberts that ms. Underwood and and the chief Justice Roberts thats the evidence that he found was not available . Ms. Underwood yes, thats right. He said he didnt have enough to quantify accord in accordance with peerreviewed standards. He didnt say there would be no effect. He said, i dont have enough to give what i what i believe as a scientist to be this term, credible quantitative to make a credible, quantitative evidence. Justice kavanaugh can can i ask ms. Underwood so he is Justice Kavanaugh im sorry, please finish. Ms. Underwood and and my point is that, at the same trial, if were going to look at the trial testimony, at the same trial, other experts said maybe so, but there is enough evidence to make a different kind of judgment, not a firm scientific, quantified judgment, but a judgment. Justice alito do you think its proper to look at the trial record on this issue . Theres a lot of citation in the respondents brief to trial testimony. Arent we reviewing the administrative record . Ms. Underwood we are. Well, as for standing, were reviewing the whole record. And as Justice Alito thats correct. But as to the arbitrary and capricious review ms. Underwood correct. Thats that that is correct, but that would make this statement also of dr. Abowd off the record, off the administrative record. Test. Test. A ms. Underwood yes. Please. Justice kavanaugh please finish. Ms. Underwood no, going going going back to your question chief Justice Roberts wait a minute, Justice Kavanaugh. Ms. Underwood while i think there is good evidence, and nothing contrary, that this 22 million would be more accurately identified by the modeling than by the census, i think it is sufficient for this purpose to treat it as somewhat uncertain because it is uncertainty with respect to the discretionary part of what the Census Bureau does; namely, collect extra information. The core function of the census, not of the Census Bureau in all its actions, but of on the census form Justice Kavanaugh but the the United Nations recommends that countries ask a Citizenship Question on the census. And a number of other countries do it. Spain, germany, canada, australia, ireland, mexico ask a Citizenship Question. And the United States has asked a Citizenship Question, as you know, in one form or another since 1820, excluding 1840. And, again, long form at times, in more recent times, and then on the acs since 2005. The question is, does that international practice, that u. N. Recommendation, that historical practice in the United States, affect how we should look at the inclusion of a Citizenship Question in this case . Ms. Underwood the same guidance from the u. N. Also says to be careful to test questions to make sure they dont interfere with the enumeration. It says you need to make a judgment in context. It may be that those countries either havent examined or dont have the problem that has been identified. The problem of depressing the enumeration that the United States has. Its certainly something to look at, but Justice Kavanaugh but you agree its very its a very common question internationally . Ms. Underwood well, it is certainly useful information for a country to have. And im not suggesting at all that that information shouldnt be collected. The question is whether it should be collected on the very instrument that is whose principal function is to count the population, when we have such strong evidence that it will depress that count, make it less accurate, and make it less accurate in a chief Justice Roberts well, the principal purpose youre youre right, the principal purpose is to count the population, but weve had demographic questions on the census i dont know how far back, but, certainly, its quite common. Ms. Underwood thats thats correct, but we have no evidence about chief Justice Roberts sex, age, things like that. You go back and it looks you know, do you do you own your house . Do you own a radio . I mean, the questions go quite beyond how many people there are. Ms. Underwood well, id like to say two things about that. We have no comparable evidence about any of those other questions that they depress the count in this substantial a way and in this disproportionate a way because, as this court said in wisconsin, distributive accuracy is even more important for the census. Justice alito well, the the the Response Rate is very important, so can i ask you a question about that . A lot of your argument and a lot of the District Courts argument seems to hinge on this prediction that there will be 5. 1 percent fewer responses if the Citizenship Question is included on the census. But that seems that is based, as i understand it, on the fact that noncitizens are somewhat less likely to complete the acs, which includes the Citizenship Question, than are citizens. Am i right in understanding that . Thats fundamentally where that comes from . Ms. Underwood its not about not completing. Its about not i mean, its not about skipping questions on a form. Justice alito not not responding. Ms. Underwood its about not responding. Yes. Justice alito thats correct. Okay. They are somewhat less likely to respond to the acs than are ms. Underwood the acs in one study and the long form in another. Justice alito okay. But what jumps out is the fact that citizens and noncitizens differ in a lot of respects other than citizenship. They differ in socioeconomic status. They differ in education. They differ in language ability. So i dont think you have to be much of a statistician to wonder about the legitimacy of concluding that there is going to be a 5. 1 percent lower Response Rate because of this one factor. But maybe there is something more there. So what what does that analysis miss . Ms. Underwood the strong well, a couple of things. The strong empirical evidence that is the basis for that judgment, which, by the way, has not been contested by the government, the government has other things to say but does not contest this decline Justice Alito i thought they did but, in any event, go ahead. Ms. Underwood i will come back to that is a is a retrospective review of comparing in one case for 2010 the short form census and the acs, and in 2000 it was to compare the short form and the long form census. Its a comparable comparison. In each case the longer one had a Citizenship Question on it. In each case everyone, population groups notwithstanding, there was a decline from the short form to the long form. But there was a much greater decline among hispanics and noncitizens. Justice gorsuch but, counsel, doesnt Justice Alito have a point, to the extent that there could be multiple reasons why individuals dont complete the form. Ms. Underwood well, the lay Justice Gorsuch and we havent ms. Underwood im sorry, go ahead. Justice gorsuch plenty of interrupting. But we dont have any evidence disaggregating the reasons why the forms are left uncompleted. What do we do with that . I mean, normally we would have a regression analysis that would disaggregate the potential cause and identify to a 95th percentile degree of certainty what the reason is that persons are not filling out this form and we could attribute it to this question. We dont have anything like that here. So what are we supposed to do about that . Ms. Underwood well, i think i think there are a few things to say. Justice gorsuch and and and ms. Underwood well Justice Gorsuch and let me just throw in one other question. I know your light is on but i really wanted to get it to you and im sorry we havent gotten there. And, that is, what do we do also and its totally different, so im really sorry what do we do with the fact that, as i understand it, some of the respondents and other people in litigation have complained when when folks have relied on the acs to extrapolate citizenship for purposes of redistricting and, in fact, argued that we should rely only on actual census data . And i understand respondents have made that argument in litigation. So what do we do with that . Ms. Underwood there are a lot of complaints about the acs. The Census Bureaus proposal to use administrative records solves most of them. Its not a question of just the acs, which is a survey about which there have been many complaints, and the putting the question on the census. The Census Bureau is they are data experts. There are many ways of trying to collect data. The question in this case is whether doing it on the census form is warranted, even though it causes such a harm to the count. Justice sotomayor i thought that that ms. Underwood now that brings captioning performed by vitac letter, somewhere i read, that they controlled for for that Justice Gorsuch was mentioning as reasons why people would not complete they certainly controlled for the length of the form. Not just that. On page 110 of the joint appendix it says whether the that they are much greater. They say comparable rates for other democratic variables like sex, birth date, age, race, ethnicity. So i thought that that was an effort to control for the things that Justice Alito mentioned insofar as theyre relevant. It was. The only limitation on it was that they had to deal with data that already existed. Dr. Abou wanted to do a ran domd controlled test of this question wand wasnt permitted to do. Thats a different issue, isnt it, what Justice Breyer mentioned. Its the decline in the Response Rate based on those variables, but not it doesnt it doesnt, as Justice Gorsuch says, dis aggregate the many factors that could explain a decline when youre dishing between citizens and not citizens. Well, it did try to control for other properties that citizens have and noncitizens have. Its fair to say we dont have this isolated, though, isnt it . They did their best. Theres some degree of isolation, in you have to enable them to believe that they had isolated the if a k torse that people thought of as plausible there are a million factors. Theres pet dogs. Yes. I mean, there are cats. So if, in fact, there were some factors that are relevant which were not in the data because they only controlled for six of the factors instead of 600, i would expect somewhere in this record someone to have written that there were these other factors that also should have been controlled for. I know what youre going to say, unless im wrong, you better not tell me that i am right if im not. I could not find any such place in the record. Nobody proposed that i know of proposed factors that might be alternative explanations that should have been tested for. And would it be right to say, in general, it was the census burrow owes conclusion, a bureau full of statisticians, that it was the Citizenship Question that was driving the differential Response Rates. That is that is correct. Are there other are there other questions on the census for which the administrative records provide more Accurate Information . There is nothing in the record about that. Then i dont want to hear about it. Okay. Okay. To the point that if you rely on 6e then you shouldnt be even asking this on at. Consider. S form. No. For one thing, in order to use to do modeling, in order to do sampling, they need some survey data to compare it to and so some judgments can be made and the judgment might be made that the acs or some question their that doesnt involve harm to the count, that is sampling or some other form of less than universal questioning, that testing questions on that kind of instrument is the way to do it. Thank you. Thank you, general. Mr. Ho . Mr. Chief justice, may it please the court, the secretarys decision rested primarily on one assertion, that it would improve the accuracy of citizenship data provided to the department of justice. But the administrative record revealed precisely the opposite. That it would make that data less accurate and thus harm the secretarys stated purpose of Voting Rights act enforcement. The secretarys explanation for his decision misstated the evidence in the record in three critical respects. First, the secretary asserted that adding the question would maximize the Census Bureaus ability to use administrative records on citizenship, but the government has conceded that that was not true. At page 32 of their brief they acknowledge that if the request he is added, the number of people who can be matched to these administrative records, the most Accurate Information that we have on citizenship will fall by 1 million. Second, the secretary asserted that adding the question would improve the bureaus imp u tags of citizenship for people for whom the government lacks any such records, but the government has conceded that that was not true, either, at page 34 of their opening brief they acknowledge that the Census Bureau determined that if the request he is added the imp u tags process will become less accurate and here is why, the accuracy of i am. Putation depends upon the accuracy of existing data. Federal administrative records are based upon legal documents of citizenship and those are accurate and reliable for this purpose, but the citizenship ship is not. The evidence shows that noncitizens respond to the question inaccurately onethird of the time. So if the question is used, the data thats used for imputation will be contaminated about i those incorrect responses making the output of that process less accurate, making the data less accurate and harming the secretarys stated purpose of improving the accuracy of citizensh citizenship. He asserted that adding the question would fill in the gaps for 22 Million People in administrative records on citizenship, but the Census Bureau concluded specifically on the last page of their march 1st memo in the administrative record that the secretarys decision will not solve that problem and the reason is, again, because responses to the question are highly inaccurate whereas the imputation process would be more accurate. Thats reflected in the Census Bureaus bottom line conclusion in its march 1st memo and its reflected in the testimony of that takes us back, does it not, if im following your argument to the 22. 6 Million People who will answer the Citizenship Question but as to whom there arent administrative records, thats what youre talk being. Yes, Justice Alito. Okay. So then this is territory that weve covered, but if the secretary is told, here is the error rate that we can expect for those who answer the Citizenship Question and on the other hand we have this model and we cant tell you how accurate it is but trust us its going to be better is it capricious for the secretary to say i dont want to go with that model because i dont know what the accuracy is. I think the Census Bureau said a little bit more than trust us. What the Census Bureau said was we can develop a highly accurate model for this thats going to be better than getting the question wrong onethird of the time. Yeah, well, they said in our opinion this would be better b you this he cant quantify it. They dont provide specific number, they dont even provide a range, am i right on that . They do say that it would be more accurate than responses to the Citizenship Question which they do quantify as being incorrect onethird of the time for noncitizens. If i can get back to justin kavanaughs question earlier about whether or not that can help with the Voting Rights act enforcement, it isnt. Here is why. Citizenship data matters in the voting im sorry, what cant . I lost sight of the it in your answer. The secretarys decision, mr. Chief justice. I thought you were talking about whether its helpful with respect to the Voting Rights information. Thats right. Adding a Citizenship Question to the census, im sorry, is not helpful for Voting Rights act purposes because responses to the question are inaccurate so frequently for noncitizens. Citizenship matters in the Voting Rights act context when youre dealing with a population in which there is a large number of noncitizens. The vra requires the drawing of districts in which minority voters constitute a majority sometimes under some circumstances. Now, under normal circumstances voting age population data will be sufficient for that purpose if citizenship rates are high, but if the Minority Group has relatively low citizenship rates, for example, as is the case with hispanic populations in some certifications, then you need citizenship data to make sure that youre drawing a district in which a minority of voters are, in fact, a majority of the population and data thats wrong, onethird of the time, with respect to noncitizens just doesnt help you draw districts that granular block by block level. When we talk about the block by block level one of the complaints weve heard from the other side is that the data that we re lie on from the avs is too high a level and the census goes down to a more granular level. Some of the states who are respondents before us have in litigation including in this court argued that acs data should not be relied upon for purposes of citizenship or other purposes. The census data is more accurate. What do we do about that . It seems to me like you put the government in a bit of a catch22. You say they shouldnt use the census except for in later litigation when they have to use the census. Justice gorsuch, let me say two things in response to that. The t. Irs is that to the extent that more granular citizenship data were, in fact, necessary for Voting Rights act enforcement purposes and we set forth a number of reasons for our broo he have why thats not the case we know states have argued this, including some of the respondents before us. So it is a thing. Thats fair. But what the Census Bureau recommended was that it could develop that block level data with existing acs data or using administrative records and that that would be, in fact, the best and most accurate way to do that. The states that said previously that isnt enough are going in future litigation toss boond themselves as saying that is enough. Are you prepared to say that . Our clients have never taken that position and im not aware of my organization ever taking that position. How about the underreporting, the to ex who stop and break off answering the long form and were asked to believe thats solely attributable to this question. We have a whole bunch of states that say that the breakoff rate because of that question is Something Like 0. 36 . So that its very difficult to understand why that question would be the cause of people stopping answering, whereas another possible explanation that hasnt opinion explored as i understand it at least is the length of the form itself may deter those with less means and less time to fill them out. Just as simple as that. We dont know. What do we do with the fact that we dont know . Justice gorsuch, the Census Bureaus conclusion was that the most likely explanation was the Citizenship Question. The only difference in that comparative estimate was the presence of a noncitizen in a household and citizenship is obviously the most salient question that goes to the difference between those two populations. The number on the breakoff rates for the internet acs survey which i believe your honor was referring to, they showed that hispanics were actually eight times as likely to break off in responding to the acs upon encountering the Citizenship Question. There isnt a that red of evidence in the strad tilt testify record that suggests that this question will not have the effect of harming Response Rates or will actually improve the citizenship data provided to the department of justice. If i could make one other point in response to your earlier question, Justice Gorsuch, adding the Citizenship Question doesnt even solve that granularity problem that you referenced. Because the Census Bureau can only produce estimates of citizenship at the block level. The government has now conceded that. On page 18 of their reply brief which is quite remarkable because the governments rationale for asking this question has been to provide a full count of citizenship and because of the Census Bureaus disclosure avoidance protocols it actually cant do that at the block level, it undermines the whole rationale for adding this question and the secretary didnt even address it in his decisional memo which renders his decision arbitrary and capricious under state form. It seems to me go ahead. What is the it in that sentence. What did the secretary not address. Because of the bureaus disclosure avoidance protocols it can only provide estimates of citizenship at the block level. If i could let me explain why. The statute requires the Census Bureau not to disclose information that could result in the identification of a persons census responses. If you have 100 People Living on a block and the Census Bureau says there are 100 citizens there, you will have necessarily identified all of their census responses. So what the bureau does is it alters demographic totals for census blocks before publishing them. That means that that data is an approximation, its an estimate just like the acs data that the department of justice currently relies on and here is whats critical well, this gets really, really technical, but well, im sorry. No, go ahead. Thats fine. Okay. Thank you, counsel. Thank you, your honors. Mr. Letter. Mr. Chief justice and may it please the court. I just want to say right up front the speaker of the house wishes to thank the justices for their courtesy in hearing from the house today. Tell her shes welcome. Thank you. I will pass that along to her, chief justice. I want to hit just a couple of points, but one of the ones i want to hit right up front is something that general underwood said and i think bears some emphasis, which is the remember that the census that were talking about here is the dis sent yall census provided for in the constitution of utmost importance to the house of representatives. That provision obviously has to be the grounding for the statute that is being applied here. So anything that undermines the accuracy of the actual enumeration is immediately a problem. So theres been a lot of discussion here, quite properly because of the way this case has been briefed, about will this help the Justice Department, the Voting Rights act, et cetera. And that may be a very important point. But it is not why the Census Bureau carries out an actual enumeration which goes to the apportionment of representatives among the states and then distribution within the states. So if there is something that undermines the accuracy of that count, even if its important for other reasons, that is both a statutory violation and, therefore, a violation of the administrative procedure act and a constitutional violation. Now, this court does not have to reach the constitutional question because it is a statutory violation. But do you think that any decrease in the actual count if you add any question beyond counting people and that decreases the actual count to any degree then that additional question is improper . Justice alito, im sure that the court will find there is a de minimis exception. There is no doubt about that. So where this court would draw that line, i dont know. What i can tell you and im sure you know this, but ill just from this court said in the wisconsin case that the question there was could a statistical adjustment be made and this court set the standard of what ul actually even nation means. It says a reasonable relationship to the accomplishment of an actual enumeration. And this discussion about the importance of Voting Rights data obviously does not bear a reasonable relationship to the accomplishment of an actual mr. Letter, im sure youve given this some thought, i know you have. In terms of assessing what a reasonable relationship is, what do we do with the history and the fact that this question has been on for what a long time was the only form in the census through almost all of our history and continues to be asks today on the long form or in the acs. Its not like this question or anybody in the room is suggesting that the question is improper to ask in some way, shape or form. What do we do as well with the evidence of practice around the world and virtually every englishspeaking country and a great many others besides ask this question in their censuses. So im sure youve given thoughtful consideration to those questions. Absolutely, your honor, although i can tell that you also have. First of all, i dont know if the other countries that are listed, for instance, in the u. N. Recommendations have an actual enumeration clause written into their constitution that is of paramount importance. So im not sure that when the u. N. Made that recommendation that that matters for the United States. Second, your honor, the there are other factors that would undermine actual enumeration. There is no evidence in the record here as chief justice pointed out, were dealing with the record here. It may be that some people find questions about gender now offensive or maybe in the future that will be deemed offensive and that would undermine the accuracy of the actual enumeration. We dont have any evidence on that. What we do know, your honor, is you quite correctly pointed out we have a history of this, but what we do know now is the experts right now say that this question if it is put on the form, which, remember, is the only form right now for the actual enumeration, that will cause that will make the undercount worse. Mr. Letter, the congress has the primary control of what the census will be, not the executive, and congress has been alerted to this Citizenship Question for some time and it has done nothing about it. So one question is who should decide, congress is silent, should the court then step in . Thats a very fair question, your honor. Two responses. One, i think that this is a very ironic point for general francis to be making. He has emphasized in his brief Congress Knows about this, congress should do something. The court can take judicial notice of this because its in the public record. The secretary of commerce has been called before congress to explain what he did here and assistant attorney general gore, the one about the author of the request by the Justice Department has been called to congress. They have been declining to answer. They are not giving congress the information it requests because they say theres litigation going on. I repeat, this is a matter of public record. So its ironic for general francisco to be saying this is for congress. Well, if thats for congress, obviously the house needs the information and yet were being told we cant have the information because its only for you. I thought all the information available, as i understand it, leads to only one answer and so why isnt that answer sufficient for them to take whatever action they consider appropriate . Im sorry, chief justice well, weve been told there is no basis for the secretary to make any decision other than the recommendation that was submitted to him by the bureau because thats the evidence. Thats the scientific evidence, and so theres no room for the exercise of any discretion. So what what more information does the Congress Need to address the problem . We want to know you decided otherwise. Why did you decide . As we know his letter provides memo provides not much information. The justices here today have been asking these key questions. We want to know what made you what made you decide this . Was this just a political i thought justice ginsbergs question went more to why doesnt congress prohibit the asking of a Citizenship Question the same way that the congress has explicitly provided no one can be compelled to provide religious information. That is something that congress could attempt to do, yes, and that is one of the things that would be would be asked about, but as we know that doesnt stop this court from interpreting the statute and the constitution as we know, this court is the final word on the statute i had one question. You make is good First Principles point about enumeration being the purpose of the census, but it turns out that the census has been used for other statistical and demographic collection purposes throughout our history. So its not just for enumeration and the statute that congress has passed gives huge discretion to the secretary how to fill out the form, what to put on the form. So how are we to think about enumeration when the history and the statutes suggest that there is more than justine operation thats at stake here . Your honor is exactly right, the census information, census data, are used for all sorts of things that are very important. Remember, the Census Bureau does things way beyond just the dis sent yall census actual enumeration. But, again, this court was very clear and, by the way, the other thing is, general francisco has argued no review. This court has reviewed how the actual enumeration has taken place i think about five times. There is clearly jude shall review here. Assuming there is review and assuming its arbitrary and comprehension, as you know its differential and the question i think here is a policy judgment that its more important to get accurate citizenship information even at the ex presence potentially of a slight decrease potentially in Response Rates. And the request he is given the statutes why is that judgment fall below the standard of reasonableness in assessing the different policy considerations . Our position is that, one, the Justice Department can get this information elsewhere, as we know, but, two, you cant undermine the accuracy of the actual enumeration in order to get information for the Voting Rights act. So the constitutional backdrop, i think, if im translating your argument, means that anything that would undermine the enumeration is impermissible and unreasonable . I believe so, your honor, and the only thing the only addition i would make to that as i said to Justice Alito, undoubtedly there is a di minimus calculation, but, again, this court is the expert on the constitution. Thank you, counsel. Four minutes, general francisco. Mr. Chief justice, thank you. Id like to make four points. First, on the disclosure avoidance protocols, with he discussed those at our reply brief at page 17. The bo the tomorrow line is those protocols apply to all census data including on sex, age, race, that the doej uses to construct citizen voting age population, its never been a problem before, there is no reason to think it will be a problem now. In fact, i think in the trial record the doctor testified how it would not be a problem. Something id like to point your honors to the key differences memo at page 148 of the joint appendix, the one full paragraph, the first sentence says the relative quality of alternative c versus alternative d will fend on the relative importance of the errors in the administrative data, Response Data and im pew stations, it then goes through and discusses the various errors and the final conclusion is unfortunately the Census Bureau cannot quantify the relative magnitude of the errors across the alternatives. Third, in terms of the Response Rates, the administrative record shows that the Census Bureau staff believed that there would be a 5. 1 decrease in the initial Response Rates from adding the Citizenship Question, but as secretary ross points out in his memorandum that doesnt take into account followup operations, thats the Response Rate drop before followup operations and it doesnt dis aggregate between those who are going to be put off by the Citizenship Question itself as opposed to those who are put off by the larger macro environment because they dont trust the government or dont like this particular administration and that, i think, is one of the reasons why dr. Aboud concluded in the testimony that Justice Breyer cited that quote theres no credible quantitative evidence that the addition of a Citizenship Question will affect the accuracy of the count. I thought that dr. Aboud stated and the direct court found that the followup process was at best riddled with a number of inadequacies and that it wouldnt be adequate enough to take care of the shortfall. We can debate about whether it would be adequate enough, but in order to say that the final selfResponse Rate would drop by 5. 1 you have to conclude that its 0 accurate and i dont think that theres any basis in the record to conclude that its 0 accurate how much accuracy would be lets assume it were 5. 8 or something close to it. Is that de minimis to you . Is that inconsequential . Your honor, i think that is largely an impossible question to answer. That is not built into the constitution itself. Theres always going to be a tradeoff. The long form current can you say, for example, caused a drop in self Response Rates relative to the short form by i believe around 10 , but my final point is one that mr. Letter alluded to and that is under thats why you keep the short form. Right, your honor. Under my friends on the other sides position you are effectively empowering any group in the country to knock off any question on the census if they simply get together and boycott it. There are many people in this country who might find the sex question objectionable because it limits individuals to a binary choice. If a large number of people got together and said were going to boycott the census general, are you suggesting Justice Sotomayor. Are you suggesting that hispanics are boycotting the cens cens census . Are you suggesting this he dont have whether its rational or not that they dont have a legitimate fear . No the in the slightest, your honor. I am suggesting that the risk of into i friends theory on the other side is accountants is precisely that type of coordinated behavior that would empower groups to knock off any question to the census that they found to be particularly objectionable. Mr. Chief justice, unless the court has further questions were all done. Thank you, your honor. Thank you, general. The case is submitted. And here on cspan 3 were live this morning at the National Press club for the first of two discussions today in looking at their recently completed Supreme Court term. This is from the American Constitution Society and their discussion here at the press club should get under way shortly. We will have it for you and another discussion coming up this afternoon covering that at 12 30 eastern on cspan 3 as well. Until this gets under way, a little bit more about the case we just shared with you, the oral argument in this Citizenship Question case. Joining us is amy howl. Last day of the Supreme Court today, two major decisions gerrymandering combined and then the Citizenship Question case. Lets first start with that case. What was the ruling in that one. In the census case the court sent the decision to include a question about citizenship on the 2020 census back to the department of commerce. Chief Justice John Roberts joined the courts four more liberal justices and they said in essence that normally courts will defer to a decision by an Administrative Agency as long as its reasonable. Theres a pretty