LogFAQs > #924208749

SCOTUS's ruling was for Commerce to "try again" and provide a rationale that wasn't a lie - Roberts more or less signalled that provided they aren't egregiously incompetent and corrupt he'd let them add the question. Commerce had argued - both at the District Court and SCOTUS, that June 30 was a deadline. But a government witness also had testified that in reality that given the resources, they could actually push that deadline into October. The plaintiffs actually argued today when DOJ called into the district court today, "We just gonna ignore that they have repeatedly argued that June 30 was the deadline and now they're saying actually we have time to consider our path forward?" and the judge was like "You're right, but asking them that is unlikely to give us a useful answer so..."

The Constitution is pretty clear that the census is to count all "persons" in the US as opposed to all "citizens." Even a literal/textual interpretation of the Constitution would have a hard time trying to handwave this away. The Constitution uses both words so if it wanted citizen there it should have used it. Indeed, it very intentionally avoids it because, among other things, this is where the 3/5ths compromise is inserted. The clause that mandates the census includes the whole "plus 3/5 of all slaves" (lit. "three fifths of all other Persons") part.
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xp1337: Don't you wish there was a spell-checker that told you when you a word out?