1:43
But according to a Kelly Percival, a census expert and counsel for the Brennan Center for Justice, Trump's options to \"delay\" the census would be strictly limited under the Constitution and current law.
\"The census is set by statute so he doesn't have the unilateral authority to delay it,\" Percival told ABC News Thursday.. \"It's possible [the president] was referring to the printing deadline. The administration has repeatedly maintained it has to print the forms starting in July, but there's also been some evidence they could delay it to Oct. 31.\"
However, Percival said that delaying it past Oct. 31 could impact the ability to deliver all the census forms to Americans by the April 1 deadline, which can only be pushed back in the event Congress changes existing law.
Justice Clarence Thomas, joined in part by Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh, called the majority opinion an \"erroneous decision\" that wrongly assumed the Trump administration was acting in bad faith.
\"This Court has never held an agency decision arbitrary and capricious on the ground that its supporting rationale was 'pretextual.' Nor has it previously suggested that this was even a possibility,\" Thomas wrote in his dissent.
\"An agency action is not arbitrary or capricious merely because the decisionmaker has other, unstated reasons for the decision,\" he continued, defending Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross. \"Nor is an agency action arbitrary and capricious merely because the decisionmaker was 'inclined' to accomplish it before confirming that the law and facts supported that inclination.\"
Ross and the Trump administration have not made a “strong showing of bad faith or improper behavior,\" Thomas wrote.
The decision leaves open the possibility that the Commerce Department could try again to add a citizenship question to the census, but it's not clear they can do so in time.
The Justice Department and Commerce Department did not immediately respond to ABC News' request for comment.
\"Given the likely legal challenges that would come to whatever new case the department might present, and ongoing lower court litigation over evidence in the case, it is remotely likely that the administration will actually be able to add the question,\" said ABC News' legal analyst Kate Shaw.
“This case has never been about a line on a form. It is about whether everyone in America counts. This ruling means they do,” said Dale Ho, an attorney with the ACLU who argued before the Surpeme Court on behalf of challengers of the citizenship question.
Demographic researchers hailed the decision as a win for accuracy in the coming decennial count.
“This is a win for the science behind the Census plain and simple,” said John Casterline, president of the Population Association of America, a group of data scientists. “A scientifically accurate census count means better data and the ability to provide more efficient and effective services to people across the country.”
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