SILVER SPRING, Md. (AP) — The NAACP can pursue its legal claim that the U.S. Census Bureau has insufficient funds to properly conduct the 2020 Census, risking a massive undercount of blacks and other racial and ethnic minorities, a federal judge has ruled.
Government attorneys urged U.S. District Court Judge Paul Grimm in Maryland to throw out the claims in the civil rights group’s lawsuit against the Census Bureau. But the judge refused Tuesday, ruling the NAACP may be able to demonstrate the 2020 Census isn’t adequately funded.
Grimm said the NAACP’s claim is strengthened by a prediction that current census funding will run out by April, if not sooner — a year before the census.
“While (the NAACP’s) other claims could be addressed through post-census litigation, census funding obviously cannot be increased after the fact,” he wrote. “Moreover, the federal government shutdown (recently) ended through a continuing resolution that only allows the Bureau to continue with already-funded operations for three weeks, but adds no additional funding beyond that already appropriated.”
The NACCP’s lawsuit also challenged the methods and means of conducting the next census. The judge dismissed those claims but said the group can try to revive them later.
The NAACP claims poor planning for the nation’s first-ever digital census will exacerbate undercounts and leave it vulnerable to cyberattack.
Government lawyers argue that the NAACP’s concerns about census preparations are premature and based on nothing more than conjecture.
Grimm held a hearing Jan. 14 to hear arguments on the government’s request for him to dismiss the lawsuit. The judge acknowledged in Tuesday’s decision that he can’t order Congress to adequately fund the census. But he said he can rule that Congress and President Donald Trump “have failed to agree upon and finalize legislation to provide the funding actually needed to conduct the census in 2020.”
“As for the exact contours of any declaratory relief this court might grant following an evidentiary hearing or trial, it is enough to say that some form of declaratory relief is likely to redress a proven shortfall in funding for the 2020 census, and it is unnecessary to predict exactly what it would be at this preliminary stage of the case,” the judge wrote.
Prince George’s County, a predominantly black county in the Maryland suburbs of Washington joined the NAACP in suing the Census Bureau, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross and Trump last March. The NAACP didn’t contest the dismissal of its claims against Trump.
The NAACP’s suit says failing to fully count blacks has been a persistent problem, with a 2.1 percent net undercount of blacks in the 2010 census. But the group claims the Census Bureau has never been so ill-prepared.
The Census Bureau operated without a permanent director for months before the Senate voted earlier this month to confirm Trump’s pick for the position. The NAACP’s lawsuit says a hiring freeze has limited the bureau’s ability to fill other staff vacancies. The suit also says the bureau canceled important field tests last year in Puerto Rico, North Dakota, South Dakota and Washington state.
Government lawyers argue the NAACP concerns about undercounting leading to lost federal funding and lost legislative seats are “future harms” that can’t occur before the 2020 census has been conducted.
Matt Bevin is requiring Kentucky census workers to do their door-to-door duties when it’s -26 degrees outside. Always walking uphill. While fighting off rabid dogs. Builds character.
While Grimm was appointed by Obama, he is a right down the line guy, who was formally a JAG (Military) Judge. What he is seeing, is what is happening, which is the Census is a total mess, designed that way by Wilbur Ross to under-count Democratic voters. We are at banana republic level of fraud and intentional incompetence with what Ross is doing with the census.
At some point the House D (soon hopefully) will have to do some serious oversight, and exposure Wilbur Ross’s fraud.
And note, that their are so many of these cases popping up that Roberts is highly unlikely to give Trump, and his criminally fraudulent Commerce Secretary Wilbur “let them take out a loan” Ross, a pass on a highly political issue where he will have his reputation and the Court’s ended by interfering.
Geez, you know the R’s hate the courts.
This is the first I’ve heard that the 2020 census will be digital.
Does that really seem wise, given Russia’s successful cyber-attacks on American political operations in the 2016 election? Even if we grant that Russia never hacked election systems, I believe it’s already been admitted in court that Russians did hack the DNC and HRC’s campaign.
Given that, and the fact that Trump has hamstrung our cyber defenses*, is there even a shred of an argument that it’s smart to enlarge our attack surface??
If someone picks the lock on your gym locker, you don’t move all your valuables into that locker.
Kentucky is doing its own Census? Bevin can’t give orders to U.S. Census workers.