Count us in on the Census

Even as Trump administration con jobs go, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross’ attempt to insert a question on citizenship into the next U.S. Census ranks among the lowest and dumbest, so transparently is it aimed at draining New York and other immigrant-rich states of resources and political power and so obviously is it premised on a lie.

A neon-bright trail of bad faith dating back to Trump’s earliest days in the White House made it simple for Manhattan Federal Judge Jesse Furman to decide whether a multi-state lawsuit to block the question, led by New York, could proceed.

To sum up in two words Furman’s 70-page ruling Thursday on the feds’ attempt to throw the case out of court: Hell no.

Now New York Attorney General Barbara Underwood along with counterparts from 16 other states, plus seven cities, can go ahead and make their highly credible case that adding the question to the 2020 count of every head in the country would so badly warp the results in immigrant heavy states as to unfairly deprive them of political representation (since the Census decides apportionment of congressional seats) and federal funds. The stakes for New York couldn’t be more serious. This is a case that must be won.

Importantly, Furman also ruled that merely adding the question is well within Ross’ power. It was the Commerce secretary’s profound dishonesty in pursuing the change, along with willful ignorance of objections that immigrants may as a group be undercounted, that brings furious force of the law bearing down.

Offensively, Ross claimed earlier this year in a memo, and to Congress, that he merely acted at the request of Department of Justice lawyers keen on better enforcing the Voting Rights Act. Correspondence since unearthed plainly shows Ross orchestrated the whole thing — meaning he misled if not lied to Congress under oath.

Give him hell, Barbara.