The Trump administration said Tuesday it will file a petition for the Supreme Court to take up and review whether it can add a controversial citizenship question to the 2020 census, which has been the subject of numerous lawsuits playing out in federal courts.
Why it matters: This comes a week after a federal judge in New York blocked the Commerce Department from asking the citizenship question. The ruling was a significant legal victory for critics who accused the administration of trying to use the census to reduce the political power of Democratic states with large immigrant communities during the next round of redistricting in 2021.
The big picture: This is yet another aggressive Justice Department effort to bypass the usual appellate process. The agency would have appealed last week’s ruling in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit, but Solicitor General Noel Francisco said the timing of a ruling would give the government insufficient time to prepare a final appeal to the high court.
Go deeper: New York federal judge blocks Trump on the 2020 census
