Howard County Officials Join Lawsuit Against Trump Administration

HOWARD COUNTY, MD — Howard County has joined a large coalition of state attorneys general, cities, counties and the bipartisan U.S. Conference of Mayors in pursuing legal action against the Trump administration’s "impairment of the 2020 Decennial Census," the county stated Tuesday.

Earlier this month, the U.S. Census Bureau announced that it was reducing — by an entire month — the time in which self-response questionnaires will be accepted and door-to-door follow-ups by census enumerators will take place. The coalition filed an amicus brief in National Urban League v. Ross supporting the plaintiffs’ request for a nationwide stay or preliminary injunction to halt what's being called a “Rush Plan.” The coalition argues that this expedited schedule will "hamstring the bureau’s ongoing efforts to conduct the census and will impair the accuracy of its enumeration of the total population of each state."

“An undercount would severely impact Howard County – for every person not counted $18,000 in federal funding is lost that could provide funding for critical support programs that serve children and families,” said Howard County Executive Calvin Ball in a statement. “The 2020 Census has already been hampered by the COVID-19 pandemic, and instead of providing the tools necessary for an accurate count, this administration has deployed every tactic to do just the opposite. The Census should not be political – it is a constitutionally mandated process that is critical for fair and effective government. We will continue to fight against this administration’s blatant attacks.”

This legal action is in addition to the lawsuit Howard County joined earlier this month against the Trump administration’s attempt to exclude from the census count all undocumented persons towards each state’s congressional apportionment following the Census.

In Tuesday's brief, which was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, the coalition led by New York Attorney General Letitia James argue that amici have a direct stake in this dispute, as the decennial census determines the states’ political representation in Congress, provides critical data for states’ redistricting efforts and affects hundreds of billions of dollars in federal funding to states and localities. The coalition notes that "an inaccurate census will directly impair those interests, inflicting harms that will persist for the next decade."