SCOTUS weighs Trump's contentious census bid

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday is set to take up President Donald Trump’s unprecedented and contentious effort to exclude illegal immigrants from the census, which if successful could limit the political power of some Democratic-leaning states.

Trump – who’s hardline stance against immigration has been a hallmark of his presidency – issued the directive in July.

His challengers – which include several U.S. states, led by New York – have argued that the move would leave several million people uncounted and cause states with large numbers of immigrants, like heavily Democratic California, to lose seats in the U.S. House of Representatives.

House seats are based on a state’s population count.

The case focuses on one of several policy moves the Trump administration is rushing to complete before President-elect Joe Biden takes office on January 20th.

The Supreme Court, which has a 6-3 conservative majority including three justices appointed by Trump, is scheduled to hear an 80-minute oral argument by teleconference Monday.

The census is mandated by the U.S. Constitution, which requires that the apportionment of House seats be based upon the (quote), “whole number of persons in each state.”

The Supreme Court last year ruled 5-4 against Trump’s effort to add a citizenship question to the census. Trump’s administration would base its numbers on data gathered elsewhere.

There are an estimated 11 million immigrants living in the U.S. illegally.

A lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union told Reuters he is optimistic the court’s conservatives, who often tout the importance of interpreting laws as written, would view this as a (quote) “rather easy case.”

But a professor at George Mason University’s Antonin Scalia Law School in Virginia who filed a brief opposing Trump, said although the challengers have a strong case, one obstacle could be that some conservative justices embrace a broad view of presidential powers.