Quote:
Originally Posted by Pete F.
Under the federal Administrative Procedure Act, responsible officials must, at the time a decision is made, offer a nonarbitrary, non-capricious explanation for choosing their strategy for carrying out their statutory authority. This requires at least that the proposed administrative action be a rational way of carrying out the mission Congress has assigned the executive, and that the rationale be clearly explained at the time of an agency decision. In the case of the citizenship question, the Department of Commerce failed to take this step, which is why a 2020 citizenship question is now on hold.
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This is not true. Secretary Ross
did take the step. From a March 27, 2018 Reuters article: A question about citizenship status will be included on the 2020 Census to help enforce the Voting Rights Act, federal officials said on Monday . . . Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross decided to add the question to the count after a Department of Justice request based on the desire for better enforcement of the voting law, the U.S. Department of Commerce said in a statement.
"Secretary Ross determined that obtaining complete and accurate information to meet this legitimate government purpose outweighed the limited potential adverse impacts," it said.
Regardless of what Ross may have said, or implied before, that does not make his stated rationale arbitrary or capricious. See Justice Thomas dissent.