Director Steven Dillingham told the House Oversight Committee that he had no news from the White House about the presidential memo on the distribution count. He said he found out about the order in a newspaper article and saw the actual order “when it was posted on the web.”
Dillingham also declined to say whether the office needed additional time to complete the 2020 census due to the coronavirus pandemic. The Trump administration this spring asked Congress to extend completion deadlines by four months, but several House Democrats said they are concerned that the government has strayed from that request.
The conversation about extending the deadline “was not on my level,” Dillingham testified. She said her focus is moving “as fast as possible and to get a complete and accurate count as soon as possible.”
Representative Jimmy Gomez, a California Democrat, accused Dillingham of relinquishing control of the traditionally non-political census operation.
“There seems to be an obvious pattern that you do not have control of the Census Bureau, and this administration’s political appointments are,” said Gomez.
Dillingham replied that “he is not directly involved with Hill’s negotiations to revise the schedule.”
Dillingham’s predecessor as census director John Thompson testified at the hearing that “failing to extend those deadlines is going to put enormous pressure on the Census Bureau.”
“It is not clear what kind of quality counts they can produce if they don’t get the extension, so it could be a big problem,” Thompson said.
About 63% of households have responded to the 2020 census. To increase response rates, they now plan to send additional mail to some households in September and start phone calls to some households that have not responded.
This census is the first that any household can respond to online, and Dillingham said that since the website launched, “it hasn’t had a single minute of downtime.”
“I cannot answer or give my personal points of view”
Dillingham told the panel that implementation of the citizenship order is underway as opponents challenge the directive in court.
“We have experts in the Census Bureau who are now beginning the process of analyzing methodologies,” he said. “That process is just beginning. The presidential memoranda came out last week.”
He said the group has yet to produce a report on its work.
Dillingham declined to express his views on the directive itself, saying that “it is not in a position where I can express my views on politics.”
“I cannot respond or give my personal opinion because my job as director of the Census Bureau will be to run the 2020 census,” said Dillingham.
The order drew rapid criticism from advocates of minority and immigrant communities, including those who successfully fought the administration’s attempt to include a citizenship question on the census form.
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