Speaker 1: You're listening to Bloomberg Law with June Grasso from Bloomberg Radio.
Speaker 1: After lawsuits and weeks of criticism for the widespread delays
Speaker 1: in the mail, Postmaster General Lewis Dejoi is facing more problems.
Speaker 1: The House Oversight Committee is launching an investigation into whether
Speaker 1: de Joy pressured employees at his former business to contribute
Speaker 1: to Republican candidates and then reimburse them with company funds
Speaker 1: and the guise of bonuses, in violation of campaign finance laws.
Speaker 1: The Washington Post reported that five employees of DeJoy's former
Speaker 1: North Carolina company, New Breed Logistics, said they were urged
Speaker 1: by de Joy's aids or by DeJoy himself, to write
Speaker 1: checks to Republicans and attend fundraisers at his mansion, later
Speaker 1: to be reimbursed in bonuses. My guest is Mareth McGehee,
Speaker 1: the executive director of Issue One, which advocates for a
Speaker 1: stronger campaign finance laws. Merit. The basic scheme alleged here
Speaker 1: hiding where donations come from by having employees make them
Speaker 1: and then reimbursing them. Is that considered illegal? Well, it's
Speaker 1: one of the bedrocks of financial and campaign finance disclosure.
Speaker 1: That the purpose of having it is you know the
Speaker 1: true source of the money, and so this notion of
Speaker 1: giving in the name of another has been something that
Speaker 1: has been illegal since the nineteen seventies in the campaign
Speaker 1: finance context, but it's often a problem when you have
Speaker 1: disclosure rules. People's attempts to evade those rules kind of
Speaker 1: described the situation where getting in the name of another
Speaker 1: is this is often referred to, is one of the
Speaker 1: few places where both campaign finance law is clear and
Speaker 1: it actually has, unlike many other portions of law, been
Speaker 1: enforced robustly over the years. So there's a strong record
Speaker 1: of enforcement precisely on this question. It doesn't get into
Speaker 1: all the other questions of dark money, what is coordination,
Speaker 1: all these other you know, places where lives and managed
Speaker 1: to make it fairly murky. This is a clear black line.
Speaker 1: So then if the joy was prosecuted for this, it
Speaker 1: would be a pretty straightforward case. Well, you have to
Speaker 1: show the facts, obviously, but they've had many instances of
Speaker 1: people trying to hide some of the giving and the
Speaker 1: name of another through bonuses, through family members. There has
Speaker 1: been a record of many people who have tried to
Speaker 1: go down this path, and the law, and the record
Speaker 1: here is that if you have the facts and it
Speaker 1: can show what happens, and you don't really have much
Speaker 1: of an excuse for it. Companies can contribute through packs,
Speaker 1: But what did Joy did here was reimbursing employees with
Speaker 1: company money. Is that wrong? Well, there's a few factors
Speaker 1: here to consider. So let's take your normal political action
Speaker 1: committee and this could be whether it as a corporate
Speaker 1: pack or a union pack, but especially corporate pack. The
Speaker 1: way they generally work is that the donations to that pack,
Speaker 1: by law, has to be voluntary. That's by law. They
Speaker 1: cannot be compulsory. Second most executives, and this is usually
Speaker 1: from you know, employees of a corporation. They get a
Speaker 1: slip in their paycheck that says now at the time,
Speaker 1: for you to make your contribution to our pack. And
Speaker 1: then it is up to an individual to decide whetter
Speaker 1: to do that. And there might be a point at
Speaker 1: which you have a whole meeting and people are sitting
Speaker 1: around a room and one of the people, usually the
Speaker 1: general council or someone who runs the pack, gets up
Speaker 1: with this, Well, you want to make sure your voice
Speaker 1: is heard in Washington. Make sure you make your pack contribution.
Speaker 1: You know, this is going to be really important for
Speaker 1: our company. All those happened regularly and are permitted by law.
Speaker 1: There can even be some part where somebody turns to
Speaker 1: you if you're a high level executive and says, hey,
Speaker 1: have you made your contribution this year? And you could,
Speaker 1: you know, certainly feel some pressure. Even though it's supposed
Speaker 1: to be voluntary, you could certainly conceivably feel pressure to
Speaker 1: make that contribution to show that you want to rise
Speaker 1: in the company. All those things happen on a regular basis.
Speaker 1: So does it depend on how much pressure whether the
Speaker 1: employee feels like he or she might be losing their job.
Speaker 1: In this case, apparently there were emails were sent that
Speaker 1: invited employees to fundraisers. They were follow up calls and
Speaker 1: visits to employees desks. So there's the line between Okay,
Speaker 1: at what point is something that's supposed to be voluntary
Speaker 1: become compulsory? Right? You would have to look at the
Speaker 1: set of facts to determine whether that occurred. Something that
Speaker 1: was supposed to be voluntary. Hey, if you want to
Speaker 1: get ahead of this company, you'll know what you'll do. Right.
Speaker 1: Then you've crossed into a line but that's I'm just
Speaker 1: drawing that picture because I think it's important understand that
Speaker 1: that kind of happens on a regular basis every day.
Speaker 1: Why are the line here? I think it sounds like
Speaker 1: according to the stories that come out, it's one thing
Speaker 1: for someone to say, hey, if you're a good company employee,
Speaker 1: you'll give to the pack. It's a far far different
Speaker 1: thing to say, hey, you make your contribution and I'll
Speaker 1: make sure you know that it gets covered, or I'll
Speaker 1: get it, cover it and any taxes based on them
Speaker 1: on the bonus, or why don't you have your wife
Speaker 1: to it and I'll make sure that it gets covered.
Speaker 1: You've crossed the rubicon on legality when you start getting
Speaker 1: into the world of you know, and I'll make sure
Speaker 1: it gets covered. There's a separate question of whether or
Speaker 1: not it's been voluntary based on the pressure. That's one question.
Speaker 1: There's a very different question about whether or not any
Speaker 1: contribution was then covered financially. I suppose a close investigation
Speaker 1: of the books would absolutely show whether or not there
Speaker 1: was a reimbursement of the employee contributions dollar for dollar. Yes,
Speaker 1: And you know, it's very interesting when you look at
Speaker 1: some of the past cases. There was one involving the
Speaker 1: Fiesta Ball back many years ago, and uh, it almost
Speaker 1: sounds like a repeat of many of the instances where
Speaker 1: the x CEO of the Fiestable actually pleaded guilty in
Speaker 1: connection with this kind of um you know, evasion and
Speaker 1: donation in the name of another. So they say, there's
Speaker 1: kind of a long record of where people have tried
Speaker 1: to gain this because they want to get the political credit,
Speaker 1: but they end up getting tripped up and in some
Speaker 1: cases in that case they were not only crying to
Speaker 1: excuse somebody actually went to jail, which was pretty unusual.
Speaker 1: So yeah, you have to look at when what was
Speaker 1: the between the donations and any reimbursements set that occurs
Speaker 1: Nowadays we have email trails, so what was the understanding
Speaker 1: All that comes into the mix as part of the
Speaker 1: fact case that would be looked at. How often does
Speaker 1: this go on across the country because this would not
Speaker 1: have been discovered unless he had become Postmaster General and
Speaker 1: there was all this investigation into his past. Unfortunately, these
Speaker 1: straw downers are they as they take contributions to the
Speaker 1: name of another are strictly prohibited. But we first have
Speaker 1: a federal election commission that currently does not even have
Speaker 1: a quorum. Even when they do, they're very weak and
Speaker 1: many times, uh you know, their investigative capacity is quite limited.
Speaker 1: It will only come cases only come to their attention
Speaker 1: like this if there's really just been either a press
Speaker 1: report or there's been a whistle blore. So it's kind
Speaker 1: of hard to say how often it occurs. Usually, if
Speaker 1: you have a decent general counsel, part of their job
Speaker 1: to make sure you don't do some thing like this,
Speaker 1: which is kind of one of the it's easy to do,
Speaker 1: but it should be easy to know where the line is,
Speaker 1: and uh, you know, to me, this is a failure
Speaker 1: of whoever his campaign finance and company lawyers were to
Speaker 1: make sure that they didn't cross. But it is a
Speaker 1: pretty clear line. As they say, there's a lot of
Speaker 1: murky lines when he comes to camping finance, and this
Speaker 1: isn't one of them. Joyce said that he wasn't aware
Speaker 1: that any employees felt pressured, right, there's a difference between
Speaker 1: feeling pressured and getting reimbursed. The statute of limitation seems
Speaker 1: to have run in this case, so he probably won't
Speaker 1: be prosecuted federally. But apparently North Carolina. He could be
Speaker 1: prosecuted under North Carolina laws. Yes. In fact, the Common
Speaker 1: Cause I just saw on the news wire had just
Speaker 1: filed a complaint in North Carolina. So that has been
Speaker 1: brought to the attention in North Carolina. So the way
Speaker 1: I understand that North Carolina's is not a statute of
Speaker 1: limitations unlike federal law, which is five years. So that's
Speaker 1: why they filed that complaint calling for an investigation of
Speaker 1: the straw Downers scheme. Because the company was in high Point,
Speaker 1: North Carolina, a new breed logistics would fall under North
Speaker 1: Carolina law. Does the federal government outside of the FEC
Speaker 1: do they often bring prosecutions for campaign finance violations? Well,
Speaker 1: there's two ways that these investigations go. So the Federal
Speaker 1: Election Commission can conduct an investigation and decide their administrative fine,
Speaker 1: or if they believe that there has been a criminal violation,
Speaker 1: usually wilful and knowing, then they get referred to the
Speaker 1: Justice Department and there's a public Integrity section that would then, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, take that case on and do the investigation
Speaker 1: and bring any any you know, lawsuit against those folks.
Speaker 1: So the Federal Election Commission does not have the ability
Speaker 1: under current law to adjudicate any criminal willful and knowing
Speaker 1: violation that all falls to the d o J and
Speaker 1: the House Democrats. The Oversight Committee has launched an investigation
Speaker 1: into this, not only for the campaign finance, but also
Speaker 1: for the fact that he may have committed perjury the
Speaker 1: last time he testified. Seems as if, you know, he
Speaker 1: gave sort of a non denial denial when he when
Speaker 1: he testified that and perjury. Would perjury be difficult to
Speaker 1: get him on? Oh, you know, that's always a very
Speaker 1: difficult one. And obviously this is operating in a political arena,
Speaker 1: so you know, and the people that would have to
Speaker 1: bring those cases, that case in a criminal court of
Speaker 1: law again would be the Apartment of Justice. In this
Speaker 1: Department of Justice does not seem so inclined, So you know,
Speaker 1: it's out there. Lying to Congress should be a very
Speaker 1: serious thing to do. Some people have, in fact, you know,
Speaker 1: open found guilty and end up either with with criminal sentences.
Speaker 1: But I think, look, I'm gonna say a word a
Speaker 1: little bit, and I'm only saying this in a very
Speaker 1: very small amount in defense of someone like to Joy.
Speaker 1: And you know, here's a CEO type that's running a company.
Speaker 1: And the reality is he probably is accurate and saying
Speaker 1: he has no clue himself. I'm not I'm not saying
Speaker 1: this is in fact the case. But often with CEOs,
Speaker 1: you know, they don't pay a lot of attention to
Speaker 1: u the details and stuff. Sometimes they do, and like
Speaker 1: in the case of Charles Keating, he was he was
Speaker 1: directing all the Keating Five activities, so he knew exactly
Speaker 1: what was going on. But you know, in the case
Speaker 1: of someone likes the joy, you would have us to
Speaker 1: be able to demonstrate and perhaps there is the evidence
Speaker 1: to show that he personally kind of was involved in
Speaker 1: the e effort. He says he wasn't, and there wasn't
Speaker 1: a kind of an email trail or a whistle blower
Speaker 1: that could say yes, Mr de Joy himself was involved
Speaker 1: in this. I wouldn't be shocked to find out that
Speaker 1: he didn't know, because a lot of you know, business
Speaker 1: types don't think they can be bothered. The answer of
Speaker 1: that is always he should know, right And in this case,
Speaker 1: we'll see if there is a record that shows he
Speaker 1: personally was involved. And you know, with me, some of
Speaker 1: these decisions, so that's a matter of again, that's a
Speaker 1: matter of fact that a thorough investigation could actually determine
Speaker 1: that would be left to the state of North Carolina. Then,
Speaker 1: based on the information so far public, it looks like
Speaker 1: most of this activity so far has been beyond the
Speaker 1: statute of five year statute of limitations. Now there's a
Speaker 1: separate question whether or not he remains a Postmaster general.
Speaker 1: That's a different question. It's not legal but political. Thanks
Speaker 1: so much for being on the show, Meredith. That's Mareth McGee,
Speaker 1: Executive director of Issue One. Census has been a legal
Speaker 1: mine field, with one trip to the Supreme Court over
Speaker 1: the edition of a citizenship question and with more than
Speaker 1: four cases now pending against the Trump administration over the census. Now,
Speaker 1: a federal judge in California has ordered the Census Bureau
Speaker 1: to stop winding down operations until hearing next week. Joining
Speaker 1: me is Leon Fresco, a partner at Hollandon Knight, tell
Speaker 1: us about Judge Lucy Coe's order. So Judge Lucy Co
Speaker 1: issued a temporary injunction this weekend. She's in the Northern
Speaker 1: District of California, and there's two aspects of the census case.
Speaker 1: So this aspect is called the winding down aspect. She
Speaker 1: said that the winding down aspect of the census case,
Speaker 1: which means that the government wanted to stop counting the
Speaker 1: amount of people who hadn't applied for the census, already
Speaker 1: using the online and other methods to enter the census.
Speaker 1: They were supposed to stop on October, and instead it
Speaker 1: was stopping on September thirty if they got moved up
Speaker 1: a month, and in fact, people were already getting fired
Speaker 1: by the Census Bureau and they were already getting wound down.
Speaker 1: So the court judge co eatued a temporary restraining order
Speaker 1: saying stopped doing that, stop firing people, stop winding this down,
Speaker 1: and continue with whoever you have on staff counting people
Speaker 1: who haven't been responsive to the census like you were
Speaker 1: intending to do, which was going to be a deadline
Speaker 1: of October to the October thirtieth deadline come about because
Speaker 1: of COVID nineteen was the end of September, the original deadline.
Speaker 1: It was changed and then changed back correct. What actually
Speaker 1: happened was the original deadline was at the end of April,
Speaker 1: and because of COVID nineteen, it got moved to October.
Speaker 1: So everybody adjusted all their operations to moving it until October,
Speaker 1: and then suddenly in the middle of the summer in August,
Speaker 1: the Census Bureau said, no, we're actually changing this again
Speaker 1: and we're winding this down and we're ending this on September.
Speaker 1: But then they started winding it down immediately if they
Speaker 1: started firing people immediately, and so that was going to
Speaker 1: diminish the resources available to actually count people who hadn't
Speaker 1: responded to the census. And so the nature of these
Speaker 1: claims are, well, that's our Venturian capricius for you to say,
Speaker 1: because of COVID nineteen, we needed this extra time until October,
Speaker 1: and now suddenly we don't need it. And there was
Speaker 1: no good reason given it wasn't like there were certain
Speaker 1: metrics of counting them had been met. They simply just
Speaker 1: wound back the date. Is there any evidence as to
Speaker 1: why they wound that the date? Did an order come
Speaker 1: from above? Well, so they're One of the interesting aspects
Speaker 1: of the case is there's a whistle blower who talked
Speaker 1: to the court, and the court said that they have
Speaker 1: to go through a federal whistle blower process. So that's
Speaker 1: interesting if we find out out at some point later
Speaker 1: what will happen with regards to that whistle blower. But
Speaker 1: in the meantime, the other issue that's very fascinating is
Speaker 1: that the only reason that they give is that the
Speaker 1: administration came to some determination that the census part couldn't
Speaker 1: be completed by December, which was what they believe is
Speaker 1: their satutory deadlines to produce a portionment count. They said,
Speaker 1: there's no way to do this if we collect past September,
Speaker 1: and that wasn't something they were uncomfortable with when they
Speaker 1: made these extension of these deadlines, So it's unclear why
Speaker 1: they're suddenly uncomfortable with it now. And Judge co also
Speaker 1: pointed out some conflicting statements made by a top SENUS official. Yes, correct,
Speaker 1: there were certainly serious questions there about the accuracy of
Speaker 1: the census data that were generated by the declaration that
Speaker 1: individual made. Albert Fontano, who was the associate director for
Speaker 1: the Senial Census Program. He had originally declared that the
Speaker 1: lack of field staff would be a barrier and there
Speaker 1: wasn't a way to do this. But at the time,
Speaker 1: there was a May twenty six webinar organized by the
Speaker 1: National Congress of American Indians where they've already said, we
Speaker 1: passed the point where we could even meet the current
Speaker 1: legislative requirement of December thirty one, we can't do that anymore.
Speaker 1: That was sim Olsen, the head of the field operations
Speaker 1: for Census, and so because he had said that, it
Speaker 1: may the idea that now we have to get this
Speaker 1: done by December thirty one, there's a way that that's
Speaker 1: already been said that I was going to be inaccurate.
Speaker 1: So the one reason given that we have to meet
Speaker 1: in December thirty first deadline isn't a valid reason because
Speaker 1: I was already known in May that we weren't going
Speaker 1: to be able to meet that deadline. So is the
Speaker 1: challenge to the Trump administration not counting undocumented immigrants part
Speaker 1: of this lawsuit. Well, so there's two separate lasses that
Speaker 1: those they're going on in parallel, and one of the
Speaker 1: lawsuits is about this issue of whether you can count
Speaker 1: undocumented individuals in the census. But the real basis for
Speaker 1: these plains that are being made at the moment in
Speaker 1: these lawsuits is that it was just arbitrary and capriitus
Speaker 1: to have a deadline, change the deadline, and then change
Speaker 1: it backward again because people had developed enough of a
Speaker 1: reliance interest in these deadlines that that shouldn't have been
Speaker 1: done at that point. Be I mean, if it's being
Speaker 1: made as a sort of sub textual claim that yes,
Speaker 1: there might be this intense that the bigger cities which
Speaker 1: had more of these individuals don't get counted. Experts have
Speaker 1: warned that shortcuts would lead to inaccurate census counts, missing
Speaker 1: the poor, the young, and minority groups. Traditionally the hardest account.
Speaker 1: Is there any evidence that that's true? Well, I think
Speaker 1: everybody who's in general fearful and hiding from law enforcement
Speaker 1: in general because they know that at the moment to
Speaker 1: their advantage that they be seeing less than as opposed
Speaker 1: to be seen more will be harder to count. And
Speaker 1: so the complication than becomes if you're intensive to actually
Speaker 1: count every human being in the in the United States
Speaker 1: in order to apportion this properly, the less resources you're
Speaker 1: putting towards that goal, you're gonna get more people who
Speaker 1: want to be counted as less people who don't want
Speaker 1: to be counted. And so that would have some natural
Speaker 1: relationship to I'm documented individuals. That is the third count
Speaker 1: of the complaints, That is done by the City of
Speaker 1: Los Angeles, the County of Los Angeles, and others filing
Speaker 1: this lawsuits, they're saying it is a pretext to exclude
Speaker 1: a documented forces from the apportionment count. But again, you
Speaker 1: know this, this wasn't the basis so far for the
Speaker 1: courts temporary injunctions. Of the basis was that the justification
Speaker 1: given by the government doesn't match what they said previously,
Speaker 1: and because there was a deadline given in the past,
Speaker 1: they haven't given a good reason why they would change
Speaker 1: the deadline against. So what happens if the Census Bureau
Speaker 1: is not able to complete the census by December thirty one? Well,
Speaker 1: I think the concern that this administration would have is
Speaker 1: that if it ran into late January, that if the
Speaker 1: president President drump was defeated, that Joe Biden could actually
Speaker 1: and said the count as their belief was, this count
Speaker 1: would be more this advantageous to Republicans, I suppose, than
Speaker 1: the count that this president would set. That's sort of
Speaker 1: the theory that's undergirding these lawsuits is that this would
Speaker 1: be the only possible as some explanation that is clear
Speaker 1: and provable. This explanation is the only explanation that that
Speaker 1: they can surmise for why all of this is happening.
Speaker 1: And there was a request to the Senate to extend
Speaker 1: the deadline beyond December one, and they never took that up. Correct,
Speaker 1: And that's one of the issues that's actually going to
Speaker 1: be under debate right now during this period, right before
Speaker 1: the Continuing Resolution needs to pass on September. And there
Speaker 1: is some beliefs that there is some bipartisan consent this
Speaker 1: here to move defenses because you know, there are states
Speaker 1: like Texas also that are large states that want everybody
Speaker 1: COUNTID in Texas, that are more read you know, and
Speaker 1: say things with Florida than just states like California or
Speaker 1: New York. So it will be interesting to see if
Speaker 1: the Congress is part of the Continuing Resolution actually ends
Speaker 1: up expending these deadlines but not needing these lawsuits. So
Speaker 1: tell us more about the second aspect of these lawsuits
Speaker 1: and where that stands right well. The second aspect is
Speaker 1: the issue that has now been argued in oral argument
Speaker 1: in New York and will be argued soon in California,
Speaker 1: which is can you actually include undocumented immigrants from the census.
Speaker 1: And so that's the issue that is being argued, and
Speaker 1: there's all kinds of peripheral issues there about whether you
Speaker 1: have to wait to do that until after the show
Speaker 1: that you've been damaged by not counting people, or whether
Speaker 1: you can do it now preemptively. But it appears as
Speaker 1: the Second Circuit, where they have a three juch panel
Speaker 1: with some district court and some second Circuit and that
Speaker 1: would go directly to the Supreme Court if they actually
Speaker 1: banned the memo that the President wrote. That panel seems
Speaker 1: to have some skepticism of the government's arguments here, and
Speaker 1: they seem to think that this policy is wrong to
Speaker 1: say that you can't count undocumented individuals, and that the
Speaker 1: timing is fine now at the moment to be able
Speaker 1: to make this claim. You don't have to wait until
Speaker 1: later to show that you were harmed by the accounts
Speaker 1: that were subsequently done. And so because of that, I
Speaker 1: can foresee that kept getting to the Supreme Court relatively quickly.
Speaker 1: Who has the stronger argument at the Second Circuit as
Speaker 1: to whether or not you can count undocumented immigrants. Well,
Speaker 1: it seems that if the Second Circuit panel accepted the
Speaker 1: argument that it would be illegal and unconstitutional not to
Speaker 1: count undocumented immigrants from the census have to see. They
Speaker 1: seem to be having some struggle perhaps with is this
Speaker 1: the right time to make that argument, or do you
Speaker 1: make it after you see the formula and after you
Speaker 1: see the counts so that you can better debate what
Speaker 1: was actually counted or not. But it seems like they
Speaker 1: were convinced in that argument, although we need to see
Speaker 1: the order to see that at the end of the day,
Speaker 1: the the challenge could occur now and that there is
Speaker 1: an unlimited power on the President to determine how to
Speaker 1: apportion the districts. And so it seems likely that we're
Speaker 1: going to be getting an order in the next week
Speaker 1: or two that says that this memo is illegal, and
Speaker 1: then that would be challenge to the Supreme Court. So now,
Speaker 1: remind us the Supreme Court has already ruled on the
Speaker 1: census once via five to four vote. Remind us what
Speaker 1: was decided then, right, the Supreme Court at that point
Speaker 1: invalidated the process and a five four decision by which
Speaker 1: the Census Bureau tried to ask a citizenship question in
Speaker 1: the census because they said that that process was arbitrary
Speaker 1: and capricius and didn't follow the process by which you
Speaker 1: would insert such a question in the census. They didn't say.
Speaker 1: They didn't say one way or the other, definitively, what
Speaker 1: is the fate of whether you could ask such a
Speaker 1: citizenship questions? Nor did they say whether it would be
Speaker 1: illegal or not to exclude undocumented individuals from the census.
Speaker 1: But nevertheless, that claim appears to be heading more squarely
Speaker 1: to a chord that appears to have for sure for
Speaker 1: judges that seems to think that that's fine to exclude
Speaker 1: undocumented immigrants, for the seems to think it's not fine
Speaker 1: to exclude. And then we're gonna be left to see
Speaker 1: what justice Roberts will be able to come up with
Speaker 1: his two as he was the swing vote in the
Speaker 1: prior census case to determine whether undocumented individuals can be
Speaker 1: counted in the census. There are more than half a
Speaker 1: dozen other lawsuits you mentioned a few that are percolating
Speaker 1: through the system, and so could they be conflicting decisions.
Speaker 1: They're absolutely could be conflicting decisions. But the point is,
Speaker 1: as long as there's one chord that is issuing either
Speaker 1: a temporary or training order or a preliminary injunction, then
Speaker 1: and and they comment on a nationwide basis that this
Speaker 1: means that the United States Department of Justice would have
Speaker 1: to go to the Supreme courts to get that I'm done.
Speaker 1: And so there's three bites of the apple that the
Speaker 1: plaintiffs are trying. They're trying in the districts of Maryland,
Speaker 1: they're trying in the southern districts of New York, and
Speaker 1: they're trying in the northern districts of California. And they
Speaker 1: only have to be right one. And if they're right one,
Speaker 1: this will mean that that case will go to the
Speaker 1: Supreme Court. Who are the plaintiffs in these cases? Some
Speaker 1: are groups of our city, from our county, from our state,
Speaker 1: and they're sort of interspersed by where these locations are.
Speaker 1: The New York case is the state of New York
Speaker 1: luck some localities. The the Dordan District of California case
Speaker 1: has a lot of California based localities. Of the Maryland
Speaker 1: case as more immigration group type places in it. Let's
Speaker 1: say Joe Biden wins the election and the census had
Speaker 1: been completed the information handed over by December thirty one.
Speaker 1: Can there be litigation then to dispute the findings of
Speaker 1: the census I mean, how would that even work out? Well, yes, technically.
Speaker 1: So let's say let's say that the census comes out
Speaker 1: during a time where Joe Biden as president, and he
Speaker 1: said I don't want any of this immigration unrelated stuff
Speaker 1: impacting the census in any way, shape or ford. You
Speaker 1: still could have litigation where the states that don't want
Speaker 1: I'm documented individuals counted could do and and say that
Speaker 1: they shouldn't be counted because of a portion had been
Speaker 1: brief that their apportunateen is being negatively affective that you
Speaker 1: know that wasn't filed or in any other decade. But
Speaker 1: maybe this issue is percolated to such a powerful political
Speaker 1: issue that you might see that this time around. Thanks
Speaker 1: for being on the Bloomberg Law Show. Leon. That's Leon Fresco,
Speaker 1: a partner at Hollandon Knight. The stakes are high in
Speaker 1: these cases. The census helps determine how one point five
Speaker 1: trillion dollars in federal funding is distributed and how many
Speaker 1: congressional seats each state gets in apportionment. As of Saturday,
Speaker 1: more than eighty six percent of households have been counted.
Speaker 1: More than sixty five percent of households were counted from
Speaker 1: self responses online, by mail, or by telephone, and tent
Speaker 1: of households were counted by census takers who went to
Speaker 1: households that hadn't yet answered the questionnaire. And that's it
Speaker 1: for this edition of Bloomberg Law. Remember you can always
Speaker 1: get the latest legal news on our Bloomberg Law podcast.
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Speaker 1: much for listening.