LogFAQs > #923922887

red sox 777 posted...

I didn't get the chance to read it yet. Did he say what a good justification would be? Because if he did, I expect the government will now just copy/paste that and say that is their justification.

Not really. I'm not sure how much backstory you know on the case, so I'll include some here (and for the benefit of anyone else reading)

Under the Administrative Procedure Act, Commerce was challenged on the citizenship question. Commerce had to give the reason why they chose to add the question. Ross stated that the reason was DOJ had asked him to in order to enforce the VRA.

When the case was being argued at the district court level, they compiled a bunch of information at the time which showed that was BS. Ross came in with the intention to add the question from the beginning and Commerce basically went around to the other agencies to get a reason, eventually landing on DOJ.

A few things of note here: Roberts doesn't seem to find anything wrong with Ross coming in with this idea, and he also notes that its fine for the government to have additional unstated reasons for making a decision. In fact, he even says its the opinion of the majority that the district court was "premature" in authorizing discovery outside the administrative record (which is where the story that this had anything to do with the VRA fell apart) though notes that once that information started coming in "largely justified such extra-record discovery as occurred" so SCOTUS included that evidence in its review as well.

Consequently, Roberts find that Commerce lied about its reasoning and thus has no recourse but to remand the case back to the agency to give them a non-pretext justification. Some specific quotes: "And unlike a typical case in which an agency may have both stated and unstated reasons for a decision, here the VRA enforcement rationale - the sole stated reason - seems to have been contrived" and a bit later, "Accepting such contrived reasons would defeat the purpose of the enterprise. If judicial review is to be more than an empty ritual, it must demand something better than the explanation offered for the action taken in this case."

Basically, if Ross and Commerce didn't lie it sounds like the majority would have accepted it. That was Robert's problem - when they were asked what their reason was, they lied. And since the District Court got the evidence they did so (which again, Roberts says he thinks was premature of them to demand!) they can't overlook it.

tl;dr: It's not that Roberts felt their stated justification was weak. It was just such transparently a lie that he had to reject it.
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xp1337: Don't you wish there was a spell-checker that told you when you a word out?