Politicizing the Census

Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) introduced a bill in the last Congress that would guarantee that the U.S. Census Bureau remains an independent agency. We hope the bill would be re-introduced again this session, but doing so would put Ms. Maloney at odds with her Democrat Party.

Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA), chairwoman of the Congressional Black Caucus, is griping to the White House that Pres. Obama's pick to head the Commerce Dept., which oversees the Census Bureau, can't be trusted to conduct an honest census in 2010. Why? Because Judd Gregg is a Republican and you know how wicked and deceitful they are. So much for bonhomie of a bi-partisan cabinet.


The census is what drives the apportionment of representation in Congress as well as the doling out of billions of dollars in federal aid.


Ms. Lee claims that blacks and Hispanics were under counted in the last census. Her solution: use statistical sampling and computer models to adjust the results of the census count. In other words, if the results don't come out your way, just change the results to make it look like there are more of your constituents than there really are.


All of this is a bad idea, according to Bruce Chapman, who directed the census 20 years ago. Sampling has the same subjectivity and margin of error that opinion polls do, he says. That's why no matter what the polls say we go ahead and vote anyway.


While Ms. Lee and her caucus have no evidence to support their claim of under representation, Mr. Chapman has three years of empirical data, gathered by a number of outside statisticians that show samplings don' t improve the accuracy of the census.


In addition to the weight of this data, 7 previous census directors, both Democrat and Republican, last year signed a letter in support of Ms. Maloney's bill to turn the Census Bureau into an independent agency, theoretically beyond the pale of partisan politics.


Here's the fear: In 2010, without that independence, you could have an uber-partisan White House staff (see prior posting on "The Obamassarriat") led by Rahm Emmanuel, convince the President to issue an executive order that would trump the work of professional statisticians, further changing the makeup of Congress, and re-directing your tax dollars in a way not envisioned by the Founders.


Just thought you might like to know.