Trump Administration Moves To Escalate Census Lawsuits To Supreme Court

The Trump administration is taking steps to move the legal fight over its controversial plan to add a question about citizenship status to the 2020 census to the U.S. Supreme Court.

The administration is asking a lower court to block Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross' deposition as it prepares to ask the Supreme Court to review the lawsuits over the 2020 census citizenship question.

According to a court filing submitted Friday, attorneys at the Justice Department — which is representing the administration in the six lawsuits around the country over the hotly contested question — are preparing to appeal recent orders by lower courts for the depositions of two key Trump administration officials behind the question: Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross and Justice Department official John Gore.

Lawyers for the plaintiffs in the two lead cases have been gearing up to question Ross and Gore in their final weeks of evidence-gathering. A potential trial for the two New York cases is set to start on Nov. 5 at the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.

But in the administration's request to U.S. District Judge Jesse Furman, its lawyers asked to block all remaining depositions and document requests for those two cases "pending review" by the Supreme Court.

The Trump administration is challenging Furman's order allowing the plaintiffs' attorneys to question Ross, who oversees the Census Bureau as the head of the Commerce Department. Ross announced in March that he approved the Justice Department's request to add a citizenship question to forms for the upcoming national head count. On Friday, a judge on the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals put Ross' deposition on hold while the appeals court reviews the administration's request to block it.

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