But thanks to the Trump administration, it’s now a slow-boiling controversy that might take down Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, whose department administers the census, and who appears to have lied under oath to Congress.
Secretary Ross approved the question on March 26, but there are now six lawsuits over the change.
One of them is headed to the Supreme Court, in what will likely be Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s first politically contentious case.
From the start, the proposal was controversial, and opposed by nearly every expert on the census who voiced an opinion about it.
In fact, Ross had requested that DOJ send the letter to justify the policy change that he’d already decided to make.
Turns out, Ross also lied under oath about whether he’d talked with presidential advisers Steve Bannon and Kris Kobach.
Ross even lied about the “fact-finding” meetings he held in early 2018 with civil rights and community organizations. »