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With the coronavirus pandemic disrupting plans for the ongoing 2020 census, the Trump administration is asking Congress to pass a new law that would change major deadlines that determine the distribution of political representation and federal funding for the next decade.

The Census Bureau is requesting that lawmakers extend 

 for the bureau to deliver to the president new state population counts used to redistribute congressional seats and Electoral College votes among the states — by four months to April 30, 2021 from Dec. 31, 

 released Monday by Census Bureau Director Steven Dillingham and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, who oversees the bureau.

The bureau is also asking Congress to give it four more months to provide census data to state redistricting officials in order to redraw voting districts around the country. That deadline would move from March 31, 2021 to July 31, 2021.

If approved, the request could throw a wrench into redistricting plans in many states. New Jersey and Virginia are set to redraw legislative districts next year before their filing deadlines for elections in 2021, 

according to the National Conference of State Legislatures

More than 70 million households across the U.S. have already participated in the constitutionally mandated head count, but that's only about half of those who were supposed to receive mailings with instructions on how to respond on their own. 

Others still may need to be counted by a census worker in person, but the bureau announced on Monday it's planning to further postpone census field operations until June 1 and to extend counting to Oct. 31, according to 

Michael Cook, the chief spokesperson for the bureau, tells NPR in an email that it is the agency's "assessment" that continuing to count the country's population through the end of October means it cannot meet the current legal deadlines for delivering the apportionment count to the president and redistricting data to the states.

first made public Monday by Rep. Carolyn Maloney

 (D-N.Y.), who chairs the House Oversight and Reform Committee.

In a press release describing a phone call Ross held with some members of Congress about the plans, Maloney says the committee "will carefully examine" the request to change the census deadlines, while also criticizing the administration for not providing more information and not allowing Dillingham, the bureau's director, to brief the committee about its plans in response to the pandemic.

"If the Administration is trying to avoid the perception of politicizing the Census, preventing the Census Director from briefing the Committee and then excluding him from a call organized by the White House are not encouraging moves," Maloney said in the written statement. "The Constitution charges Congress with determining how the Census is conducted, so we need the Administration to cooperate with our requests so we can make informed decisions on behalf of the American people."

According to the House oversight committee's press release, Ross "acknowledged that the Administration had not sought input from Congress about this request in advance of this call because of concerns about leaks to the press."

Asked by NPR why no Census Bureau officials participated in the call, Cook responded in an email that Dillingham now plans to speak with members of Congress "as soon as possible," noting: "The Secretary of Commerce is statutorily delegated responsibility to conduct the decennial census and took the role of calling key congressional leaders to continue the consultation process."

The bureau's changes for the 2020 census were supported by Vanita Gupta, president and CEO of The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, one of the main groups advocating for participation in the count.


"If it's not safe to have census takers visiting people's homes by June, then Congress has an obligation to consider other options to protect census workers and the communities they serve, and to ensure an equitable count," Gupta said in a statement. "We cannot afford to compromise the health of our communities or the fairness and accuracy of the census."


Politics and Government News

Hansi Lo Wang

Author

The Census Bureau is asking Congress to change the legal deadlines for numbers used to redistribute congressional seats and Electoral College votes, as well as data used to redraw voting districts.

Trump officials ask to delay census data for voting districts, House seats

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