The U.S. Supreme Court is due to issue decisions on Thursday in cases on the Trump administration’s attempt to add a contentious citizenship question to the 2020 census.
The court’s decision would also decide bids by voters to stem the partisan manipulation of electoral district boundaries, a practice called gerrymandering.
The court, which has a 5-4 conservative majority, had five cases remaining to decide during its current term, which began in October and ends on Thursday, with the rulings set for 10 a.m. (1400 GMT).
The political consequences arising from the rulings in legal challenges to the census question and partisan gerrymandering could be significant.
This would also leave lasting effects on elections for seats in the U.S. House of Representatives and state legislatures at a time of political polarization in America.
READ ALSO: Heavy rainfall leaves buildings, cars damaged in Ilorin
Opponents have called the move by President Donald Trump’s Commerce Department to add a citizenship question to the census a Republican manoeuvre.
This was to deter immigrants from taking part in the decennial population count out of fear of deportation.
The intent, these critics have said, was to manufacture a deliberate undercount of areas with high immigrant and Latino populations, costing Democratic-leaning regions seats in the House, benefiting Republicans and non-Hispanic whites.
In April’s argument in the case, the court’s conservative justices appeared to be inclined to rule in Trump’s favour.
A group of states including New York and immigrant rights organisations challenged the legality of the citizenship question.
Saying that evidence that surfaced in May bolstered their claim that the citizenship question was aimed at furthering Republican Party political goals.
READ ALSO: Barcelona sign Brazilian goalkeeper, Neto from Valencia
Documents created by Republican strategist Thomas Hofeller, who died in 2018, showed that he was instrumental behind the scenes in instigating the addition of the citizenship question.
He was an expert in drawing electoral district boundaries that maximize Republican chances of winning congressional elections.
Hofeller, concluded in a 2015 study that asking census respondents whether they are American citizens “would clearly be a disadvantage to the Democrats” and “advantageous to Republicans and Non-Hispanic Whites” in redrawing electoral districts based on census data.
The Trump administration has said it planned to add the question to gather better data to enforce the Voting Rights Act, which protects eligible voters from discrimination.
Hofeller, suggested that rationale in the newly disclosed documents.
The challengers have said that rationale was a mere pretext to hide a political motive.
Separate cases from North Carolina and Maryland focus on whether the justices would empower courts to impose restrictions on partisan gerrymandering.
Gerrymandering is a practice in which electoral districts are devised to magnify the political power of the party already in control of a state’s legislature.
The geographical boundaries of House districts and those in state legislatures are reconfigured every decade to reflect population changes determined by the census.
During arguments in March, conservative justices indicated skepticism toward permitting judicial intervention to curb gerrymandering. (NAN)
