so what we re seeing here exactly as jeffrey and ron have said, is that this attempt by conservatives, generally the republican party to narrow that, to exclude communities of color and that s deeply problematic for what we hope is an inclusive american democracy. jeffrey toobin, the court has ruled on the census case. we ll find out what they have decided and how that division is among the justices in just a moment. this is the administration, the commerce secretary wilbur ross saying we have the right to add a question to the 2020 census that asks, are you a citizen or not and we re doing it to better comply with federal voting rights laws. critics say this is a veiled attempt to intimidate non-citizens and depress response from especially hispanic households and that has an impact on money and representation in congress, et cetera. how big is this? well, it s potentially very
of new york where the judge there will hear evidence and important to know when the judge got the additional evidence from the aclu, the judge there said this is important evidence here but not going to step in here because the supreme court is considering this question. well, now this judge in new york has the green light from the supreme court to reopen this case, to explore this evidence and then we ll see how this plays out, if eventually this citizenship question is added but it will not be for now as we face that july 1st deadline. poppy. and will a decision be made by the time the 2020 census actually does finally have to be printed? jessica, before you go, do we know the count on this decision? was it a 5-4 decision and don t worry if we don t know yet. reporter: there were different counts. this is reversed in part to some of it, so still going through the exact, all those, so we ll get back to you on that one but it was written by chief justice
discrimination. but chief justice roberts was not interested in that argument. he said when democrats, you know, draw lines to benefit democrats and republicans draw district lines to benefit republicans, that s not the court s business. the constitution has nothing to say about that. that is simply a political question, not a legal question, and we re going to stay out of it. but the bright line that chief justice roberts draws in this opinion between racial discrimination, which is illegal, and political discrimination, which is legal now, that line may not exist in the real world. well go ahead. poppy. yes. last year in the texas case, they narrowed the use of racial lines. and of course, shelby county, the landmark, probably one of the two or three most significant decisions of the roberts court eliminated the
let s begin with the census decision. reporter: poppy, notably, this is the final day of the first term with a solid conservative 5-4 majority. like you said, huge cases with huge political implications. notably, first and foremost, the question of whether the trump administration can add a citizenship question to the 2020 census and really time is ticking here, census officials said they need to get started on the printing process for the 2020 census by july 1st. that s within just a matter of days and the supreme court heard these arguments in april and at the time, the conservative justices really seem to lean toward allowing this question. they said it was well within the commerce secretary wilbur ross right to include this question but since then, there has been a lot of evidence that has come out particularly by the aclu they presented in a different court, they found evidence there were political motivations behind adding this question and while this is all decided at the
they call all of this additional evidence after oral arguments about this republican redistricting expert and the work that was done and the communication that person had with the trump administration before he died and the maryland case. right, because i mean, this is an administrative procedure case. they re accused of violating the administrative procedure act and the lower courts found a lot of evidence they did exactly that. the maryland case, as i understand it, raises a different objection of kind of overt racial bias in the adding of this question and there s no doubt, poppy, as you note, census experts themselves have predicted this will lead to a massive, a significant undercount, particularly of hispanics. i know the urban institute estimated a specific undercount of hispanics and african-americans in the census in 2020 for a variety of reasons including the addition of this citizenship question. this is something that has enormous consequences. the trump administration th