Speaker 1: Welcome to the Bloomberg Law Podcast. I'm June Grosso. Every
Speaker 1: day we bring you insight and analysis into the most
Speaker 1: important legal news of the day. You can find more
Speaker 1: episodes of the Bloomberg Law Podcast on Apple Podcasts, SoundCloud,
Speaker 1: and on Bloomberg dot com slash podcasts. The Trump administration
Speaker 1: is calling a claim that a Republican redistricting consultant influenced
Speaker 1: its decision to add a citizenship question to the census
Speaker 1: pure speculation and an eleventh hour campaign to improperly derail
Speaker 1: and impending Supreme Court decision. That decision, of course, is
Speaker 1: whether the administration can add a citizenship question to the census,
Speaker 1: and it's expected before the end of June. Joining us
Speaker 1: as Bloomberg new Supreme Court reporter Greg's store. So, Greg,
Speaker 1: let's go back a little bit and explain what was
Speaker 1: found in the files of the Republican consultant, Thomas hoff Feller,
Speaker 1: who died in August, right, uh June. Actually, let me
Speaker 1: step back even further and just explain one bit of context,
Speaker 1: which is one of the key issues before the Supreme Court,
Speaker 1: and that is why does the administration want to add
Speaker 1: this question to the census. The administration says its reason
Speaker 1: is that the Justice Department asked for help in enforcing
Speaker 1: the Voting Rights Act, which is generally designed to protect
Speaker 1: minority rights. Uh and and the opponents of the question say,
Speaker 1: that's just a pretext, that's not your real reason. So
Speaker 1: in the files of this Republican consultant is what those
Speaker 1: opponents say is evidence that the real reason was actually
Speaker 1: to help Republicans and white voters at the polls. And
Speaker 1: what they found were a couple of things. One was
Speaker 1: a study that that Mr Hope Feller conducted back in
Speaker 1: UH that essentially said that adding the question a citizenship
Speaker 1: question to the census would indeed help Republicans and white
Speaker 1: voters at the polls. And then they found some other
Speaker 1: evidence of a connection between him and a man named
Speaker 1: Mark Newman, who was an informal advisor to Commerce Secretary Ross.
Speaker 1: And the suggestion from the opponents is that uh Dr
Speaker 1: Hoefeller uh funneled information through Mr Newman and eventually influenced
Speaker 1: the way this This Justice Department letter to the Commerce
Speaker 1: Department read. So, now the Trump administration writes a letter
Speaker 1: to federal Judge Jesse Furman, who heard the case already
Speaker 1: and this is before him. What did the Trump administration
Speaker 1: say besides denying that this was true. Yeah, they say,
Speaker 1: I gave you a few, uh, you know, pieces of
Speaker 1: information there a second ago. And they basically say, you
Speaker 1: can't connect those dots in the way that the they
Speaker 1: plaint us are are trying to do it. Uh. They say,
Speaker 1: there's no evidence that the Acting Assistant Attorney General John Gore,
Speaker 1: who wrote that letter to the Commerce Department, that he
Speaker 1: ever knew anything about the study by dot to whole Feller. Um.
Speaker 1: And there's no evidence that the actual letter he put together,
Speaker 1: uh to send to the Commerce Department was in any
Speaker 1: way drawn on the work that Dr hoe Feller had done. Uh.
Speaker 1: There were some similarities in language between some files on
Speaker 1: the whole Feller computer and um a draft letter that
Speaker 1: Mr Newman had sent to Acting Assistant Attorney General Gore.
Speaker 1: But the Justice Department, the Trump administration is now saying, uh,
Speaker 1: that language never made it into the final language, and
Speaker 1: you're you're having to speculate to try to connect those dots.
Speaker 1: The real question every time we get information on this
Speaker 1: that that God insto the surfaces, what how will this
Speaker 1: fit into the Supreme Court's upcoming decision when it's information
Speaker 1: way after the fact. Yeah, it's really hard to know.
Speaker 1: I can think of a good parallel where you have
Speaker 1: new information like this coming in and where one side says, hey,
Speaker 1: it proves that the other side was being dishonest this
Speaker 1: whole time. You know, normally the Supreme Court likes to
Speaker 1: you know, base its rulings on the evidence that was
Speaker 1: before the trial judge at the time the trial judge
Speaker 1: considered it. Uh. You know, the justices, based on their
Speaker 1: usual schedules, should have already a voted on it and
Speaker 1: be circulated a draft majority opinion. So it would be
Speaker 1: quite striking for anything to to change their fundamentally. And
Speaker 1: then you have this whole issue that, uh, all this
Speaker 1: new evidence is being presented to the district judge, whom,
Speaker 1: at least on the surface, no longer has jurisdiction and
Speaker 1: doesn't clearly have anything to do with this evidence. If
Speaker 1: it had come up before him, uh a year ago,
Speaker 1: that would have been one thing, It could have been
Speaker 1: a part of his ruling. But now it's after the fact,
Speaker 1: and so it's not at all clear that this will
Speaker 1: make any difference at the Supreme Court. And one wonders
Speaker 1: even if the Court had it before it. I mean,
Speaker 1: we we've talked several times about there being other evidence
Speaker 1: of what Secretary Ross's real goal was in putting this
Speaker 1: question on the census, and the Justices, at least the
Speaker 1: Conservative Justices don't seem to consider that paramount and their decision. Yeah,
Speaker 1: at least based on the argument. Nothing in the argument
Speaker 1: suggested the Conservative Justices were bothered by any of this
Speaker 1: sort of thing. Uh. They you know that there's a
Speaker 1: statute that that gives the Commerce Department very broad discretion
Speaker 1: over formulated formulating the census and deciding what questions to
Speaker 1: put on there. The Commerce Department did put forth a
Speaker 1: rationale for why it did it, and that may be
Speaker 1: enough for the Conservative Justices. It may not matter that
Speaker 1: there were uh, that there's some evidence of hidden motives.
Speaker 1: All this may simply be atmospherics as far as they're concerned. So, Greg,
Speaker 1: is there anything about this before the Supreme Court right now?
Speaker 1: Not in any formal way. Both sides have filed something
Speaker 1: at the Supreme Court saying, hey, look what we just
Speaker 1: filed at the at the district court. And so the
Speaker 1: Justices are certainly aware that this is going on. But
Speaker 1: as a formal matter, there is nothing in front of them.
Speaker 1: I would be surprised if we didn't see some mention
Speaker 1: of it in somebody's opinion, no matter how the case
Speaker 1: comes out. But it's at least at the moment, there's
Speaker 1: nothing that the Court has to do uh with any
Speaker 1: of this evidence. So now we are in the month
Speaker 1: of June, which is your busiest time at the Supreme Court,
Speaker 1: because the decisions for the term are coming out this month.
Speaker 1: What are you looking for and uh, when do you
Speaker 1: think they'll the big ones will be coming out? Well,
Speaker 1: the big ones so often come out at the very
Speaker 1: end of June. That wouldn't surprise me if that is
Speaker 1: the case with the census case, certainly. Uh. The other
Speaker 1: really big case we're watching for it's actually two cases
Speaker 1: involving partisan jerrymandering. The Court um had considered the the
Speaker 1: issue last term and sort of kick the can down
Speaker 1: the road. It's possible now the conservative justices will say definitively,
Speaker 1: you cannot challenge a jerrymander voting map as being so
Speaker 1: partisan that it violates the Constitution. Uh, that would be
Speaker 1: a huge decision. It's also at least on the table
Speaker 1: that the Court could at least allow some challenges to
Speaker 1: to partisan jerrymandering. UM. We're also gonna be looking a
Speaker 1: lot at what cases the Court takes up for next term.
Speaker 1: So there are issues involving abortion that are there. There's
Speaker 1: another case involving a bakery that wouldn't make a cake
Speaker 1: for a same sex wedding. UH. At some point in
Speaker 1: the next few weeks, I expect to see the Court
Speaker 1: act on President Trump's effort to kill the DOCCA program,
Speaker 1: that deferred deportation program started under President Obama. UM. And
Speaker 1: all these issues could crop up next year in the
Speaker 1: middle of the presidential election campaign. It's going to be
Speaker 1: very busy, and yet another wedding cake case. It's it's amazing,
Speaker 1: all right, Greg, thank you so much as ow eight.
Speaker 1: That's Bloomberg News Supreme foot Recorder. Greg Store, Thanks for
Speaker 1: listening to the Bloomberg Law Podcast. You can subscribe and
Speaker 1: listen to the show on Apple podcast, SoundCloud and on
Speaker 1: Bloomberg dot com slash podcast. I'm June Brosso. This is
Speaker 1: Bloomberg