In the News

Today, Rep. Elijah E. Cummings, the Ranking Member of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, and Committee Members Gerry Connolly, Carolyn B. Maloney, Eleanor Holmes Norton, William Lacy Clay, and Jimmy Gomez sent a letter to Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross and the Acting Director of the Census Bureau, Dr. Ron Jarmin, Ph.D., requesting all documents relating to concerns expressed by the Census Bureau relating to the decision to add a question on citizenship to the 2020 census.

“On March 26, 2018, the Department of Commerce announced that the Census Bureau would be adding a question on citizenship to the 2020 Decennial Census,” the Members wrote. “In a memo outlining the rationale for this decision, Secretary Ross wrote that the Census Bureau ‘expressed concern’ that adding a citizenship question to the census ‘would negatively impact the response rate for non-citizens.’”

The Members requested copies of all documents and communications relating to any concerns expressed by the Census Bureau regarding the addition of a citizenship question, as well as all communications between or among officials from the Department of Commerce, the Census Bureau, and any other office or entity inside or outside of the government regarding this issue.

The Members requested these documents by April 11, 2018, when officials from the Department of Commerce and the Census Bureau are scheduled to brief Oversight Committee Members on this issue.

Last month, Cummings called for public hearings on the addition of the citizenship question, as well as other troubling examples of politicization at the Census Bureau under President Donald Trump.

Cummings also released a letter from six former Census Directors spanning Republican and Democratic Administrations from 1973 to 2017 opposing the addition of the citizenship question.

Click here to read today’s letter.

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