Supreme Court gives temporary OK for census count to end

The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday temporarily allowed the Trump administration to end its field operations as part of the 2020 census count.

The case is still under consideration, though, in the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which could decide to uphold a lower court’s order extending the counting deadline until the end of October. Until that decision has been made, though, the Commerce Department can stop going door-to-door.

The counting effort began Jan. 21, but was suspended in April due to the coronavirus pandemic, forcing the Commerce Department to push its deadline from the end of July to Oct. 31. But Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross backtracked on that plan in August, announcing he would end all door-knocking efforts and self-response filings for the 2020 census at the end of September in order to accelerate its completion.

The department said it’s under pressure to submit initial census data to President Donald Trump by Dec. 31, and asked for an emergency ruling from the Supreme Court.

The Supreme Court ruling came in response to a lawsuit brought against the Trump administration by a coalition of groups led by the National Urban League in August, arguing the truncated schedule would hurt minorities as an inaccurate count could skew the allocation of seats in the House of Representatives.

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