Why the Supreme Court census decision is the most important this term, or maybe several

[muriel_volestrangler]

This is from a member of Talking Point Memo's Prime group - subscription-only, but it's fallen onto their RSS feed so I saw it. Josh Marshal identifies the author as having " a specific, professional experience with the questions at hand".

The census case is by far the most important case this Term and perhaps of the last several Terms. Because it will tell us whether the Supreme Court is going to uphold its institutional integrity, or buckle to Trump as so many institutions and norms have crumbled in the last two years.
...
Everyone knows that in the census case Ross “papered” a rationale to justify a decision made for other reasons. But the Court can overturn the decision without finding that he lied – simply by holding that it was arbitrary and capricious to sacrifice the accuracy of the count to obtain citizenship data that could be obtained (at least as accurately, and perhaps more accurately) through administrative records without adding a question to the census. That seems a pretty reasonable holding given that the Constitution itself focuses on an accurate count of the whole population.

But if the Court goes the other way, it is truly an “emperor has no clothes” opinion. The Court will uphold the reasonableness of Ross’s “determination” even though everyone knows those were not his real reasons – in other words, basing its ruling on what everyone knows to be a fictional story, concocted to pass judicial muster. If the Court is willing to tolerate that, what won’t it tolerate?

And then there are the plainly partisan consequences of the ruling. Combine it with the almost-certain rejection of constitutional challenges to gerrymandering, and other election-related decisions and everything points in the same direction – entrenchment of Republican power to resist the forces of demographic change.

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/prime-beta/read-this-closely

And observers generally think the 5 conservatives are going to be Trump's lapdogs: https://uk.reuters.com/article/usa-court-census/update-4-trump-on-track-for-supreme-court-victory-on-census-citizenship-question-idUKL1N2250FB

[katmondoo]

1. They need to prove otherwise. I believe they will always vote Republican