2. You've probably been hearing a lot about the new citizenship question. Here's how it's worded and some background on why it's sparked six lawsuits 👇 apps.npr.org/documents/docu…
3. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, who oversees #2020census, approved adding citizenship Q. Ross has said Justice Department "initiated" request for Q. But internal emails & memos make clear Ross pushed his staff to add Q months before DOJ's request 👇 npr.org/2018/07/30/632…
4. Census Bureau's chief scientist has warned against adding citizenship Q. He said there's another way of getting citizenship data for enforcing Voting Rights Act's Section 2 that will cost less and produce more accurate data than adding Q: apps.npr.org/documents/docu…
5. Still, don't sleep on these other #2020census question changes...
6. To answer the #2020census race question, marking off "White" and/or "Black or African Am." won't be enough. White and black people will be asked to write in their non-Hispanic origins -- "German," "Irish," "African American," "Jamaican," etc.
9. One major change you WON'T see on the #2020census race question is a combined race/ethnicity question, which Census Bureau researchers say could produce more accurate race/ethnicity data and better reflect how people in the U.S. identify themselves 👇
10. But that combined race/ethnicity Q isn't happening because it requires a change to fed standards on race/ethnicity data that White House's Office of Management & Budget controls. White House has been silent on Obama-era proposals to change standards 👇 npr.org/2018/01/26/580…
11. Among those proposals that White House has been silent about is to stop allowing federal surveys to use "Negro" to describe the "black" category when collecting race data 👇 npr.org/2017/12/13/568…
12. The term "Negro" won't appear on the #2020census though
13. Another major change is to the question about a person's relationship to the householder. For the #2020census, couples will be able to choose between "opposite-sex" and "same-sex" categories 👇
@uscensusbureau 16. A warning about page 11 of the above PDF: the Census Bureau's footnote about when it's asked about citizenship status before is misleading. The last time it asked all U.S. households about citizenship was for the 1950 census 👇 npr.org/2018/05/17/612…
NEW: The Trump administration must release more internal documents for #2020census citizenship question lawsuits that @TheJusticeDept attorneys had withheld because of deliberative process privilege, U.S. District Judge Jesse Furman orders.👇
2. From Judge Furman’s opinion: These documents about #2020census citizenship Q “are not protected by the deliberative process privilege because they merely ‘reflect deliberations about what “message” should be delivered to the public about an already-decided policy decision.’ “
NEW: Trump administration is preparing to ask Supreme Court to block #2020census citizenship question lawsuit deposition of @TheJusticeDept official John Gore
AND
judge on 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has temporarily blocked deposition of @SecretaryRoss for lawsuits 👇
Over past 3+ months, I've read 12,000+ pages of internal docs the Trump admin has released for #2020census citizenship question lawsuits. I've been reporting on how @SecretaryRoss' explanation of how this Q ended up on census has suffered blow after blow w each document dump 👇
@SecretaryRoss 2. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross oversees the census. He's testified in Congress that Justice Department initiated citizenship Q request in Dec 2017 & he was "responding solely" to that. In March, he announced he approved adding question to forms every US household has to answer
@SecretaryRoss 3. After the announcement, I was having trouble keeping up w all the lawsuits that started popping up. Right now, more than 2 dozen states/cities, plus other groups, are suing the Trump admin in 6 lawsuits around the country. These lawsuits required the release of internal docs.
CONFIRMED: @TheJusticeDept initially "did not want to raise" citizenship Q request for #2020census when approached by @CommerceGov beginning in May 2017 "given the difficulties Justice was encountering in the press at the time (the whole Comey matter)" 👇
@TheJusticeDept@AGSteveMarshall@RepMoBrooks 14. Judge Furman is ordering the release of 3 of the 17 documents in question -- Bates No. 2458, 3984, 9834 -- by Monday, Sept. 17.