Jeff Sessions Didn’t Want Alternatives To Census Citizenship Question: Official Huffington Post, more at the link, caution for autoplay video of AG Sessions giving the conservative definition of “judicial activism” (dog whistle for “rulings we don’t like):

Attorney General Jeff Sessions personally ordered Department of Justice officials not to meet with the Census Bureau to discuss alternatives to adding a citizenship question to the 2020 census, a top DOJ official said in a deposition Friday.

John Gore, the acting head of the Justice Department’s civil rights division, revealed the attorney general’s personal involvement while testifying in a lawsuit challenging the question, according to a Friday court filing.

The plaintiffs in the case say Sessions’ move further supports their argument that a DOJ request for a citizenship question was meant to hide the Trump administration’s true intent.

The plaintiffs are 18 states, the District of Columbia, several cities and a handful of immigrant groups that argue the Commerce Department, which oversees the decennial census, had decided to add the question even before the DOJ made its request. The Justice Department had claimed that adding a citizenship question would help it get better data to enforce the Voting Rights Act ― a pretext, the plaintiffs say.