Barr, Ross sued over lack of census citizenship documents

WASHINGTON — The House Oversight Committee sued two top Trump administration officials Tuesday for refusing to produce documents related to a decision to add a citizenship question to the 2020 census.

Attorney General William Barr and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross “have not produced a single additional document” since the Supreme Court blocked the administration’s efforts to include the citizenship question last June, the committee said.

Rep. Carolyn Maloney,

D-N.Y., who was elected oversight chair last week, said the lawsuit follows the example set by the panel’s late chairman, Maryland Rep. Elijah Cummings.

Cummings, who died in October, “believed with all his heart that the Constitution requires Congress to ensure that the rapidly approaching Census is conducted in a professional manner that promotes accuracy, ensures integrity and is free from partisan politics — and I couldn’t agree more,” Maloney said.

The lawsuit marks the latest action by Democrats to use their House majority to aggressively investigate the inner workings of the Trump administration, including a House vote in July to hold Barr and Ross in contempt of Congress over the census issue.

Trump abandoned the citizenship question last summer after the Supreme Court said the administration’s justification for the question “seems to have been contrived.” Trump directed agencies to try to compile the information using existing databases.

The census is set to begin in Alaska in January and across the country in April 2020.