(WASHINGTON, D.C.) – June 28, 2019: Public Interest Legal Foundation (PILF) was invited to participate in a SCOTUSblog symposium on the Census case opinion released Thursday. Below are some excerpts from the submission:

In short, the court concluded that the secretary could reinstate the citizenship question and had good reason to reinstate the citizenship question, but the explanation he provided for why he did so was lacking, and that, in itself, is a fatal flaw worthy of sending the issue back to the Department of Commerce. Game over? Maybe not.

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Not only is there disagreement among the justices regarding the court’s analysis, there is disagreement among commentators about the effect of the decision. There is a genuine question about whether the Commerce Department can satisfy the court’s concerns in time for the 2020 census and, if so, how.

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Adding to the complication is that the Supreme Court decision only involved the challenges that were brought in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. There are separate challenges to the reinstatement of the citizenship question pending in the U.S. Courts of Appeals for the 9th and 4th Circuits, and in the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland. Despite the New York court’s decision blocking the reinstatement of the question in mid-January and the Supreme Court’s agreement to hear the case this term, the other lower courts proceeded with their own fact-finding and ruled against the government.

Read the entire article on SCOTUSblog here.

Read the Foundation’s prior case filings on the matter here.

The Public Interest Legal Foundation is the nation’s most active public interest law firm dedicated to enforcing the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA) and ensuring the integrity of American elections – bringing more than a dozen cases to enforce voter list maintenance obligations and inspection rights under federal law in federal courts across the nation in addition to serving as amicus in more than a dozen voting law cases. The Foundation also works with election officials and policymakers to improve the integrity of elections.

Public Interest Legal Foundation (PILF) is a 501(c)(3) public interest law firm dedicated to election integrity. The Foundation exists to assist states and others to aid the cause of election integrity and fight against lawlessness in American elections. Drawing on numerous experts in the field, PILF seeks to protect the right to vote and preserve the Constitutional framework of American elections. ###