The Commerce Department planned to add a citizenship question to the 2020 census. Its stated reason was to help enforce the Voting Rights Act. On June 27, 2019, the Supreme Court sent the decision back to the department.
Chief Justice John Roberts wrote that the Voting Rights Act rationale, “the sole stated reason,” “seems to have been contrived.” An agency must “offer genuine justifications” for important decisions. The question was kept off the 2020 census.