afternoon hearing<\/a>of the House Oversight and Government Reform committee on the status of preparations for the census.<\/p>\nAlthough the hearing was held after Committee Chairman Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.) agreed to the demands of the minority, that fact did not prevent Cummings from attacking Republicans.<\/p>\n
\u201cTrump cannot [undermine the accuracy of the Census]without the aiders and abettors in the Republican Party,\u201d who Cummings added, were preventing Democrats from conducting oversight.<\/p>\n
Pelosi called the decision a \u201cdesecration of the Constitution\u201d and a \u201cdog whistle\u201d to anti-immigrant supporters, while Rep. William Lacy Clay (D-Mo.) went one racially-explosive step further when he said adding the citizenship question was \u201cethnic cleansing.\u201d<\/p>\n
At the conclusion of the dramatics, Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.) was asked why their effort was not bipartisan. She had a simple and illuminating response.<\/p>\n
Maloney, said there were Republicans who\u2019d joined a lawsuit filed by 18 state attorneys general \u2013 in particular Oregon\u2019s attorney general.<\/p>\n
Maloney, should be aware that Oregon attorney general Ellen Rosenblum is like all of the others involved in the lawsuit a Democrat. In this argument, motives and rhetoric matters, but apparently not the facts.