Commentary
In his recent memoir, former attorney general William Barr recounts how the Trump administration lost its attempt to include a citizenship question in the 2020 census. After losing in the Supreme Court, Barr briefed President Trump on what had gone wrong. “If people were straightforward from the beginning, it could have gotten done,” Barr explained. “The trouble is the administration was too cute by half, and [Chief Justice John] Roberts threw the penalty flag.” The Supreme Court had thrown out the citizenship question because the Commerce department’s declared rationale for it was pretextual—that is to say, it was not the real reason that the Trump administration wanted a citizenship question in the census.
