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Trump’s mistake on the census citizenship question
John Roberts points to a cynical path
The response of many Supreme Court watchers when the Court handed down two extremely political decisions was that Chief Justice John Roberts was successfully threading the needle. With his decisions in a gerrymandering case and the census citizenship question case, Roberts made nobody happy, but appeared to solidify his position regarding the Supreme Courts apolitical nature.
In the case of Rucho v. Common Cause, the Court held in an opinion authored by the Chief Justice that when states draw Congressional districts, that process is beyond the decision-making capability of the U.S. Supreme Court. Remember that under our Constitutional framework, the three branches of the Federal government are coequal and have equal responsibility for upholding the Constitution. Similarly, the states delegated certain authority to the Federal government, reserving all other authority to themselves.
In this case, Roberts pointed out that the Constitution grants the authority to draw Congressional districts to the state legislatures. As a result, oversight of that authority does not fall under the purview of the U.S. Supreme Court, a branch of the Federal government.
