Timeline to the Supreme Court’s ruling on the citizenship question in the 2020 Census

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled Thursday that adding a citizenship question to the 2020 Census was constitutional but questioned the Trump administration’s reasoning for including it. The government has said it wants the question to better enforce parts of the Voting Rights Act, intended to protect minority voters. The justices asked the Commerce Department for more explanation.

The ruling temporarily blocks the question.

The decision is the latest in a spate of legal battles across the country that began soon after the Trump administration announced in March 2018 it wanted to add the question, last asked on a decennial census in 1950.

Here are some key dates since last year that show how we got to this point.

U.S. Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross, who oversees the census, announces he will add a question to the 2020 count asking residents for their citizenship status: “Is this person a citizen of the United States?” That day, California’s attorney general files a lawsuit seeking to block the question.

Philadelphia, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania join dozens of state and county governments in suing the Trump administration over the citizenship question.

A federal judge in New York rules that the addition of the question to the census is unlawful. Appeals follow.

A federal judge in California rules that adding the question to the census is unlawful and unconstitutional, because it violates the constitutional mandate that the census count every resident. Appeals follow.

A federal judge in Maryland rules that the question is unlawful. Appeals follow.

The U.S. Supreme Court justices hear nearly 90 minutes of oral arguments for and against adding the question to the 2020 Census.

The U.S. Census Bureau announces it will begin mailing census questionnaires to approximately 480,000 households across the country to test the citizenship question’s effects on response rates and the bureau’s operations.

The Supreme Court rules that the citizenship question is constitutional but asks the Trump administration to clarify its reasoning for including it. Meanwhile, a case that questions the administration’s motives and alleges the question is racially discriminatory is pending in Maryland.

Census Day. The 2020 Census attempts to count every person living in the United States as of this date.