What questions would further this conversation?

Part 1:

After listening and reading over the case for this week, I have found a few reasons why I think the Department of Commerce was in the right. Although, I do think that some of the laws that govern the Department of Commerce need to be changed or they need more of an explanation. The first reason why I believe that the Department of Commerce was in the right is because of 13 U.S.C. 141(a). This statute allows the secretary of the Department of Commerce to implement a census every 10 years "in such form and content as he may determine"^[1]. So just based on this statute, I would think that they were in the right.

Another reason why I think they were in the right is that during the oral arguments, it was stated that the secretary has a lot of information at his disposal in order to find answers, but in the end, it is up to the secretary to see if that information is enough and if it isn't then the secretary could add questions to the census in order to get the answers. This again would fall under his right under statute 13 U.S.C. 141(a). In the end, the Supreme Court ruled that the secretary did not break the statute or the enumeration clause, but the case still had to be remanded back to the agency because the evidence presented did not correlate with the reasoning to add the question in the first place.

Even though I am supposed to be fighting for the defense in this scenario, there was one thing that Justice Stephen G. Breyer mentioned that for me, should change 13 U.S.C. 141(a). Justice Breyer asked the attorney Noel J. Francisco, can the secretary just put down whatever questions he wants, for example, asking about someone's sexual orientation, and if he can, would that also be excluded from what the judges can judge on^[2]? In my opinion, Justice Breyer made a really good point and therefore I believe that the statute should be amended. This leads me to think that the Supreme Courts ruling was legally correct but, in the end, the regulations and statutes that the Department of Commerce abides by, need to be updated, and there needs to be a clear-cut rule stating that when adding questions to the census, the questions themselves need to abide by certain rules and regulations instead of leaving it up to the discretion of the secretary.