Indianz.Com > News > Cronkite News: Tribes decry end to 2020 Census as Trump secures order from Supreme Court

Supreme Court’s Census ruling a ‘bitter pill’ to tribes, advocates
Wednesday, October 14, 2020
Cronkite News
WASHINGTON – The Supreme Court Tuesday said the Census Bureau can stop its count of the population, a blow to tribal leaders and local advocates for underrepresented communities in Arizona who said they would be hit hardest by an undercount.
The court blocked lower courts that had ordered the bureau to continue counting until October 31 and essentially allows the agency to stop counting
with 99.9%
of homes in the U.S. – and in Arizona – accounted for.
The decision was immediately criticized by plaintiffs in the suit, who said ending enumeration before everyone is counted will just mean the groups they represent will continue to be left at “the margins of the U.S. society at large.”
“Today’s decision by the U.S. Supreme Court is a bitter pill for us to swallow here on the Reservation,” said Gila River Indian Community Gov. Stephen Roe Lewis said in a statement Tuesday evening. “With no explanation or rationale, a majority simply decided that our people do not deserve to be counted.” His tribe, along with the Navajo Nation, civil rights groups and local governments around the country, had filed suit to block a Census plan that would have ended the count on September 30. The bureau had first pushed the enumeration deadline back to October 31 to allow for time lost to COVID-19 restrictions. But it suddenly reversed course in August and said it needed to end enumeration by September 30 in order to have enough time to deliver a report to the president by December 31, as the law requires. Lower courts disagreed, noting that bureau officials had asked Congress for an extension this summer, arguing then that there was no way it could meet the Dec. 31 deadline. A district court judge ordered the Census to keep counting until October 31, agreeing that the plaintiffs would be irreparably harmed by an undercount, which affects federal funding and congressional representation, among other things.U.S. Supreme Court Issues Decision to End Census Operations pic.twitter.com/qOQVYvGvGI
— Gila River Indian Community (@GRIC_Official) October 13, 2020
For more stories from Cronkite News, visit cronkitenews.azpbs.org.Navajo Nation leaders express disappointment with U.S. Supreme Court ruling that ends the 2020 Census count pic.twitter.com/XPYodiNg3F
— Jonathan Nez (@NezForAZ) October 14, 2020
Note: This story originally appeared on Cronkite News. It is published via a Creative Commons license. Cronkite News is produced by the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University.
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