The Census Bureau is refusing to brief the House committee with oversight over the 2020 census on the hiccups that that have arisen in the final phases of the survey, according to a Thursday letter Oversight Committee Chairwoman Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) sent Census Director Steve Dillingham.
Earlier Thursday, TPM broke the story that the Census Bureau has identified “anomalies” in the survey’s apportionment data — a routine issue that comes up in every census — and the Bureau is expecting that fixing the issues will add another 20 days or so to the release schedule of it.
However, that delay would mean the President Trump would no longer be in office, and thus would not be able to implement a plan to exclude undocumented immigrants from the count used for congressional apportionment.
Maloney’s letter pointed to a statement Dillingham himself put out confirming the anomalies. The statement was mum on the anticipated delays in the timeline for producing the data, however.
“Unfortunately, the Committee was not informed about these anomalies before they
became public,” Maloney said. “To the contrary, the Census Bureau cancelled several weekly staff briefings on the status of the 2020 Census over the past month. In addition, when Committee staff requested a briefing earlier today about these new developments, they were refused.”
Maloney is asking the Census Bureau to turnover by next Tuesday a series of request documents, including “All documents, including memoranda and slide presentations, prepared or used in connection with briefings for you, Secretary Ross, or other Trump Administration officials regarding data processing anomalies, data accuracy, or potential delays, including in particular any briefings on November 18 or 19, 2020.”
Read the letter below:
