Officials want delay in nation's head count due to virus

The US Census Bureau wants to delay deadlines for the 2020 head count of all US residents because of the coronavirus outbreak, a move that if approved by lawmakers would push back timetables for releasing data used to draw congressional and legislative districts, officials said Monday.

Census Bureau officials said they were postponing all field operations until June 1 and the deadline for wrapping up the nation's head count was being pushed back to October 31.

Field operations for the 2020 census have been suspended since mid-March and were set to resume this week. The deadline for finishing the head count also had been pushed back from the end of July to mid-August because of the pandemic.

Census Bureau director Steven Dillingham and Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross, whose department oversees the bureau, said they are seeking to delay the deadline for delivering state population counts used for apportionment the process of carving up congressional districts from the end of this year to the end of April 2021.

They also want to push back the deadline for giving states data for redistricting from the end of March 2021 to the end of July 2021.

Both deadlines are established by federal law and any changes would require congressional approval.

The White House arranged a call on Monday with congressional leaders about the requested changes, but no one from the Census Bureau was on the call. The House Committee on Oversight and Reform will carefully examine the request, said U.S. Rep. Carolyn Maloney, who chairs the committee.

The director of the Census Bureau was not even on today's call, and the administration has refused for weeks to allow him to brief members of our committee, despite repeated requests," said Maloney, a Democrat from New York.

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."
Former Census Bureau director John Thompson said the bureau was caught between a rock and a hard place."