What About the Census?http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/05/opinion/05thu3.html?_r=1&pagewanted=printThere’s been a lot of speculation about what President Obama was thinking when he decided to nominate Senator Judd Gregg, a prominent Republican, as secretary of commerce. Is he looking for the dissenting voice that will sharpen his views? Or, as The Wall Street Journal put it, is he trying to psych out Mitch McConnell, the minority leader, by availing himself of Mr. Gregg’s advice on how to pick off Republican votes in the Senate?
Time will tell. An easier question to answer is what Mr. Obama wasn’t thinking about when he chose Mr. Gregg. It seems safe to say that the 2010 census was not weighing on the president’s mind, though it should have been.
The Census Bureau is a major agency within the Commerce Department, and the decennial census — the next one is in 2010 — is a mammoth undertaking. After years of mismanagement and underfinancing by the Bush administration, the bureau is so ill prepared to conduct next year’s count that Congressional investigators have warned that it is at high risk of failure unless corrective action is taken immediately.
Mr. Gregg was never a friend of the census. As chairman of the Senate committee that oversees the Commerce Department’s budget, he frequently tried to cut the bureau’s financing. In 1999, he opposed emergency funds for the 2000 census requested by President Bill Clinton and the Republican-controlled House.
The census is used to allocate federal aid to states and draw electoral districts. Given all that, one would think that the White House would be paying more attention. It isn’t. A director of the census, who must be confirmed by the Senate, has yet to be named.
Gregg mum on Census Bureauhttp://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29046718/MANCHESTER - Sen. Judd Gregg yesterday declined all comment on reports that the White House will strip him of his authority over the federal Census Bureau even before he becomes Secretary of Commerce.
A White House spokesman last evening said, "From the first days of the transition the census has been a priority for the president, and a process he wanted to reevaluate. There is historic precedent for the director of the census, who works for the Commerce Secretary and the president, to work closely with White House senior management -- given the number of decisions that will have to be put before the president. We plan to return to that model in this administration."
Political Battle Brews Over 2010 Censushttp://www.foxnews.com/politics/first100days/2009/02/07/political-battle-brews-census/"The United States census should remain independent of politics," House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, said. "It should not be directed by political operatives working out of the White House." :eyes: like not funding it? :eyes:
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