Zach Montellaro and Josh Gerstein are reporting for Politico [dot] com the U.S. Supreme Court has granted the Trump administration's request to halt counting for the census early, blocking a lower court order that required the government to continue the process as originally planned through the end of October. The SCOTUS October 13 order granted the Justice Department’s request for an emergency stay without offering an explanation for the decision, which required the support of at least five justices. Justice Sonia Sotomayor issued a written dissent. She was the only justice on the eight-member panel to note her dissent calling the harms from ending the count early “avoidable and intolerable.” After initially claiming it required an extension due to the coronavirus outbreak, the Trump administration switched gears this summer and said it would end enumeration by September 30, a month early. Experts, both inside and outside the agency, have expressed concern over a shortened timeframe for the constitutionally mandated count, arguing that a politically motivated, shortened timeline due to the pandemic threatened the census on two ends: both the actual counting and the data processing that follows. The count determines how approximately $1.5 trillion in federal spending is directed and how House seats are apportioned among the 50 states. Early in the day October 12, the Census Bureau announced it had counted 99.9 percent of American households: 66.8 percent through self-response, and 33.1 percent through nonresponse followup. Read the full story at politico [dot] com.