they will be afraid of being harassed, they will be afraid of immigration enforcement. they simply will avoid being named in the census. if people of color who tend to be more democratic don t answer the census, those districts will be less represented in the congress and the state legislatures. they will get less money from the federal government. that s the political backdrop to this. jeffrey, i want you to continue on that but add to it, we know because i believe it was six different census officials warned that by asking this, it would jeopardize the count. right. the question is, is that a bug or a feature? is the reason they added the citizenship question to get fewer spanish speaking people named or is that an unfortunate side effect? that s one of the issues the court might address. okay. so to you, elizabeth, also here at the crux of all of this is
related in that sense an we re waiting for the census decision to come down in a few moments but just talking about the impact here of justice kennedy no longer being on the court. remember in 2015, it was scalia, i believe, who wrote the majority decision there essentially saying that the court that a map challenging extreme gerrymandering, the question here, was not reviewable, but kennedy left the door open in 2014 and he wrote he would not foreclosure on all possibility of judicial relief if some limited and precise rationale were found, but that door has now been closed. i m hearing we re getting a ruling on census. let me know when we can go to jessica on that. until we can, this is a seat change because kennedy is no longer on the court. elizabeth? right, exactly. and so you have, you know, this conservative majority being much starker in their decision than they would have, i think, if
there s never been this question specifically and, you know, especially when you re talking about the way in which the administration is supposed to make decisions by putting forth its actual reason, you know, that s the issue that s before the court here. we have an administrative procedures act which says that the court has to put forth its reasons for decision making, excuse me, the administration has to put forth the reasons for its decision making, and here, we have good evidence to say they re doing it to enforce the voting rights act. you ve never needed this question to enforce the voting rights act. we ve had certain administrations very pro-voting rights act who have not needed to put this on the census. my question is, what s the real reason and there s a lot of evidence to suggest the trump administration s reason is discriminatory and to help the republican party. ron brownstein, what is going to be fascinating here along with the key decision from the court is what they
rober roberts. you broke it down so well. thank you, jump in when you have more. jeffrey toobin, question of motivation and honesty here. i ve now read the opinion, which helps, or enough to understand what it is. basically, what the court has done, and it did this unanimously, is they said, back to the judge in the southern district of new york and that s a judge named jessie firman, recently appointed by president obama and basically said, look at this issue again. because the evidence is disturbing and not entirely clear and we don t really know the answer on the issue of political partisanship. but if you read all the if you look at the full context, it certainly looks like, to me, anyway, that the citizenship question at the end of the day is going to wind up on this questionnaire. if you look at what the more
elizabeth said, the elizabeth is so strong and continuing to come out that it will be an even starker choice if they allow it, ultimately allow it. i would be surprised if the lower courts allow this question. it will probably be an issue of the supreme court overturning them if it gets on to the census this fall. thank you all very, very much. two incredibly consequential decisions from the supreme court. elizabeth, jeffrey toobin, and ron, and thank you all for joining me. we ll have live coverage from there. kate bolduan picks up our coverage right after this.