Census 2020: Commerce Chief Sets October 5 Target End Date
The census for this year will have an end date of October 5, said U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross.
This decision ran in contrast to a federal judge's ruling last week. It said the census could have an end date until the end of October, as noted in a tweet from the Census Bureau on Monday.
The end date for the census has been an ongoing battle lately. The matter is of great importance as the headcount is used to allocate seats in Congress, The Guardian noted.
Census data is also used to determine how federal spending worth $1.5 trillion should be distributed per year.
During a virtual hearing held in San Jose, California, the announcement was made, said an AP News report. It was a follow-up hearing to the U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh's preliminary injunction.
The new end date doesn't really violate the judge's order because only the field operations were suspended in the injunction. It also suspended the December 31 deadline of the Census Bureau for turning in figures for congressional seats.
Koh asked federal government attorneys to present documents on how they came to the October 5 deadline. They said the decision making was a "moving target" that did not have any records.
August Flentje, special counsel to the assistant U.S. Attorney General, said, "It's day-to-day adjustments and assessments."
Lawsuits on Census End Date
Some groups sued president Donald Trump's administration because of the census end date. In August, they announced plans to shorten the timeline by a month, Reuters noted.
Civil rights groups and some municipalities argued there was a "rush" in the schedule. They claimed this could lead to inaccurate results and a "massive undercount of the country's communities of color."
Critics believe the move could exclude undocumented immigrants from the survey and advantage certain groups in the coming elections.
The Trump administration said it would appeal to the judge's decision. Attorneys argued that the headcount had to be finished by September 30 to meet a December 31 deadline for apportionment.
But with the restraining order, they knew that the deadline was unlikely to be met.
Unofficial End Date Announcement
Announcing the change of end date was notable since it was only linked to Ross. Previous announcements on the matter were made either by Census Bureau director Steven Dillingham or both men jointly.
The Commerce Department announced this as census takers claimed they were being pressured to meet the September 30 deadline. This is even after Koh issued her injunction.
In an email obtained by AP News, a northern California manager told supervisors, "We're in the home stretch with only three days left."
In that same region, another manager told census supervisors Monday that they had to complete 99% of households by Wednesday.
Because of the pandemic, the deadline for ending the 2020 census was moved by the Census Bureau from the end of July to the end of October. They also asked Congress to have more time to turn in the number of seats for apportionment.
Check these out!
2020 Census: Court Temporarily Stops Bureau's Plan to 'Wind Down' Operations
White House Seeks to Exclude Undocumented Immigrants from Census Data
How do Trump, Biden Prepare for Tomorrow's First Presidential Debate?
Subscribe to Latin Post!
Sign up for our free newsletter for the Latest coverage!
