by Penka Arsova
LaCorte News
The Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that the Trump administration can temporarily end field operations for the 2020 census, while an appeals court reviews the matter.
The ruling allows the Trump administration to stop the count until the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals makes a definitive decision. Justice Sonia Sotomayor dissented.
The story: The request from the Trump administration came after a lower court ordered the count to last until Oct. 31, as originally planned. The issue was brought to court after Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, in August, changed the plan announced in April that would have seen the count ending on Oct. 31. The deadline was pushed because of the coronavirus pandemic and under this timeline, the president would have received the results from the count on April 30, 2021.
But Ross backtracked in August, arguing that concluding the count at the end of September would give them enough time to meet a Dec. 31 statutory deadline for reporting the census results to the president.