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Chief Justice John Roberts Switched Vote to Ax Census Citizenship Question: CNN

The chief justice was reportedly ready to side with the Trump administration after hearing arguments, but changed his mind in the following weeks.

Chief Justice John Roberts was the deciding vote in the Supreme Court’s blocking of the Trump administration’s attempt to add a citizenship question on the 2020 census—but he initially wanted to rule in favor of the question’s addition. According to CNN, Roberts was ready to rule with Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross and the administration on the issue after hearing arguments in late April. However, he reportedly began to waver in the following weeks and came to the conclusion that Ross invented the rationale for the question’s addition. The chief justice—appointed by former President George W. Bush and a reliable conservative in the the court—ended up siding with the court’s four liberal justices in a 5-4 vote, and penned the opinion blocking the question. Roberts declined to comment publicly on his decision.