Read on Twitter
NEW: Republicans in Congress are signaling the Census Bureau cannot take the extra time it has said it needs to count every person living in the U.S. amid the pandemic -- even if that risks leaving some residents out of the #2020Census.
My story: https://www.npr.org/2020/07/28/895744449/republicans-signal-theyre-willing-to-cut-short-census-counting
My story: https://www.npr.org/2020/07/28/895744449/republicans-signal-theyre-willing-to-cut-short-census-counting
2. In April, I reported on how the COVID-19 had upended the #2020Census to the point where the Census Bureau asked Congress to push back by 4 months legal deadlines for producing the apportionment count by Dec. 31 & redistricting data by March 31, 2021. https://www.npr.org/2020/04/13/833546675/trump-officials-ask-to-delay-census-data-for-voting-districts-house-seats
3. Democrats in both the House and Senate have responded by introducing provisions to extend #2020Census deadlines by 4 months in:
- HR 6800 on May 12 ( https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/house-bill/6800)
- HR 7034 on May 27 ( https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/house-bill/7034?q=%7B%22search%22%3A%5B%22Census%22%5D%7D&s=1&r=1)
- S 4048 on June 23 ( https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/senate-bill/4048?q=%7B%22search%22%3A%5B%22schatz%22%5D%7D&s=7&r=13)
- HR 6800 on May 12 ( https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/house-bill/6800)
- HR 7034 on May 27 ( https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/house-bill/7034?q=%7B%22search%22%3A%5B%22Census%22%5D%7D&s=1&r=1)
- S 4048 on June 23 ( https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/senate-bill/4048?q=%7B%22search%22%3A%5B%22schatz%22%5D%7D&s=7&r=13)
4. Republicans in Congress offer no extra time for the #2020Census in their latest proposal for coronavirus relief aid as released on Monday.
They do offer more funding. https://twitter.com/hansilowang/status/1287884346251071489
They do offer more funding. https://twitter.com/hansilowang/status/1287884346251071489
5. Top Census Bureau officials, however, have already publicly declared that meeting current legal deadlines for the #2020Census is no longer possible.
6. In May, I reported: https://twitter.com/hansilowang/status/1265983267632746501?s=20
7. Earlier this month, the bureau's associate director for the #2020Census, Al Fontenot, said at a July 8 press briefing in response to my question about current legal census deadlines: "We are past the window of being able to get those counts by those dates at this point."
8. Many census advocates are alarmed Republicans have not proposed census deadline extensions — a request that Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, who was appointed by President Trump, first made to Congress himself in April during a call that included no Census Bureau officials.
9. The absence of a proposal in the GOP relief package suggests the Trump admin may have abandoned its own request for extensions, Terri Ann Lowenthal, a former staff director of the House oversight subcommittee for the census who now consults on census issues, tells me.
10. "There is no reason not to extend the deadline unless you are trying to embed an undercount of certain groups of people in the census counts," Nancy Potok, a former deputy director at the Census Bureau who recently retired as the chief statistician of the U.S., tells me.
11. The continued lack of clarity in the census timeline will make it more difficult to try to ensure a complete #2020Census count, Jeri Green, who advises the National Urban League and previously served at the Census Bureau as a senior adviser for civic engagement, tells me.
12. If Trump loses the presidential election to former Vice President Joe Biden, sticking to the Dec. 31 deadline would ensure that the #2020Census apportionment count is delivered to Trump while he is still in office.
13. That is the same apportionment count that Trump is seeking, with little authority, to change by excluding unauthorized immigrants, a move that is facing multiple lawsuits from challengers who are asking federal courts to declare it unconstitutional. https://www.npr.org/2020/07/24/894322040/trump-sued-for-attempt-to-omit-unauthorized-immigrants-from-a-key-census-count
