arguments on the trump administration's lan to ask about citizenship on the 2020 census. the census is held every 12 years and determines the number of seats each state gets in the house of representatives and the amount of federal funding states receive. the trump administration argues that citizenship questions have been asked her out history -- asked throughout history. but three courts have blocked the commerce department from picking up that question. arguments should be getting underway now and willing is aboutke with a reporter the case this morning on washington journal. ist: joining us on the phone a supreme court reporter with the washington post to talk more about this case. what are the legal issues in this case? guest: the legal issues, there are a couple. judges saidct court

that secretary ross had violated the administrative procedures act with the way he went about saying this question was going to be added to the form, acting against the advice of those who said it would cause an undercount. it of those judges said would result in a survey that was so inaccurate that it would fail to satisfy the constitutional demand that the population be counted every 10 years. the court has a lot of things to look at today. it has expanded the argument time beyond its usual hour is to hear from all the lawyers who want to be heard about -- >> who are the lawyers, who is our doing -- arguing for and against? >> noel francisco will argue for

the federal government for the trump administration and then there are lawyers from the state , andw york, aclu lawyer there is a lawyer representing the house of representatives, which since democrats have taken control of the house has intervened in the case. >> what will it trump administration argue today? guest: they will be arguing that leftis a decision that is to the agency to decide, that congress very clearly has said that the power to set up the census belongs to the commerce ,epartment, the census bureau the court system should not be intervening to make

these decisions. it is the power to make these decisions that is important, not necessarily secretary ross's motivations for why adding a citizenship question is a good idea. host: what are his motivations? guest: that has been the problem. he first said he was adding at the department of justice who said they needed the to enforce in order the voting rights act which is something that protects minority rights. actually het that had gone to the justice department saying i need you to tell me you want this information so i can do this and that he had talked about this issue with some of the hardliner immigration types in the white house.

there is a lot of skepticism by the judges who look at this case and they walked right up to the line of calling him a liar for his motivations in this. arguments are the from the other side? what is the fear? the fear is that there will be an undercount that your previous person was talking about. even though this information is supposed to be secret and we have no reason to believe it is not secret there will be some in the households that have ties to undocumented people in the country, that they will not want to fill this out, that

they will be afraid the information will be used to try to find people who are in the country illegally. and that it won't be accurate. the estimates even from the census bureau is that it could be an undercount of as much as 6.5 million people. which is larger than many states. throw all sorts of things off that it could even affect the re-portioning of congressional seats to the states. could mean that some metro areas are not seen as large as they really are. billions of dollars of federal aid is distributed because of where people live and if we don't have an accurate picture of where people live that will be done in the correct way. do you have an idea of how the justices might rule?

is there precedent? guest: there is not really precedent. has been asked before in previous census forms, it is always asks of a subset of people, but it has not been part of the short form since 1950. we have gone a long time without asking the citizenship question. the court sometimes is quite deferential to the , to letting those that have the power make the decisions and reluctant to get involved. be a very will interesting oral argument today because we don't really know. is only thing we do know when the challengers to this decision were trying to depose the commerce secretary wilbur ross, that issue came to the supreme court and the supreme

court said they could not take that deposition of the cabinet officer, that there was no precedent for that. that did allow the trials about the case to continue. little bit of a mixed message there from the court. previous interaction they have had in this case. host: when will the court rule? guest: i wish i knew. that is the question people always ask me and i can never answer. the court issues its decision whenever it is done. we know it will have to be done by the end of june. the court took the case in an unusual fashion. usually it waits for something to the argued and goes through the appeals court process. there is no time to do that here. decidedstion has to be and the forms have to be printed this summer.

we know the court will have to rule by the end of june. host: other news out of the ,upreme court, a press page court to consider rights of gay transgender employees. what did the court decide yesterday? guest: the court decided it will look at the title vii civil rights bill that was passed in 1964 and it for bids discrimination on the basis of sex. court will decide whether that phrasing is broad enough to provide protections based on sexual orientation and gender identity. it has taken three cases, two of them involving gay workers who were fired by their employees. a transgenderved woman who was fired from her job

and they will look at this question of what exactly title vii protects. robert barnes, supreme court reporter with the washington post, thank you. last month commerce secretary wilbur ross testified on the 20 $.20 a citizenship western being taken up by the supreme court this morning. congressman elijah cummings of maryland chairs the house oversight committee. we will show the hearing beginning with his opening statements. >> we will hear from secretary of commerce the honorable wilbur ross about preparations for the 2020 census. ourconstitution requires government to conduct a census every 10 years. the constitution also requires personount every