Is Obama Politicizing the Census?
EmailABC News’ Rick Klein Reports: The Obama administration is moving to exert more direct White House control over the Census Bureau, in time for the once-a-decade national headcount that determines states’ representation in Congress. Under the new management structure, the director of the Census Bureau will report to “White House senior management” as well as to the Commerce secretary, where President Obama wants to install a Republican — Sen. Judd Gregg — who in the past has clashed with Democrats on issues related to the Census. The Obama White House says the decision is based on the model used by the Clinton administration, and reflects the fact that the president will have to make so many decisions associated with the massive undertaking that is the federal Census. But Republicans are protesting the move, calling it a political power grab from a White House that’s promised to defer to professionals in agencies instead of political appointees. “This action appears to be motivated by politics, rather than the interests of our country, and the burden will be on the new administration to prove otherwise during Senator Gregg’s confirmation hearings,” House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, said in a statement Friday. GOP lawmakers are pointing out that the new structure will effectively leave White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel — a former chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee — in a decision-making position regarding how Census business is conducted. “The Census is supposed to be not only outside of politics, but transparent,” said Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., the ranking Republican on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. “This implies that President Obama intends on getting a count to his liking. It borders on overt political corruption.” While the issue of counting people hardly seems political, the reapportionment of House seats based on the decennial Census has huge political ramifications. In addition, Census data are used to determine funding formulas for a wide range of government programs. The run-up to the 2000 Census featured a pitched battle over whether to rely on the actual count of individuals, or statistical modeling that could produce more accurate results. Democrats tended to favor the latter mechanism, since hard-to-reach people — particularly minorities and recent immigrants — are more likely to live in Democratic areas of the country. (The bureau eventually decided that only the actual count would be used in 2000.) Obama spokesman Ben LaBolt downplayed the impact of the structural changes. He said President Bill Clinton had a similar flowchart in place, and pointed out that the director of the Census Bureau will still report to the Commerce Secretary. “From the first days of the transition the Census has been a priority for the President, and a process he wanted to reevaluate,” LaBolt said. “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.” But Republicans note that news of the new structure only came out after Obama announced his attention to nominate a Republican for the Commerce post. In the run-up to previous census counts, Gregg has opposed additional funding for the agency, and some organizations have questioned whether he would inject GOP priorities into the Census as Commerce Secretary. “This clearly puts politics first,” Issa said. UPDATE: White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs was asked about this topic at Friday’s briefing. His response: “I think the historical precedent of this is there’s a director of the Census that works for the Secretary of Commerce [and] the president, and also works closely with the White House to ensure a timely and accurate count. And that’s what we have in this instance.”
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Oops. Looks like our Smartest Leader just discovered the Comm. Sec. is actually more important than he realized. What a boneheaded mistake this is! It actually really counts. He cannot leave the head-count to a republican, can he? Rahm must be screaming realizing how the republicans realigned Texas districts based on census data.
Posted by: two cats | February 6, 2009, 2:44 pm 2:44 pm
The lack of experience shows itself again.
Will be interesting to see how he maneuvers out of this one..(but then again he does not need to maneuver unless he is just playing politics).
media induced preZ………
Posted by: Anon | February 6, 2009, 3:07 pm 3:07 pm
Is the media still hiding behind the “liberal media” rhetoric while cheerleading and preserving their very lucrative and hypocritical status with the conservatives whom they protect and who got us in this mess in the first place, just like they did with the Clinton and Bush administrations?
Posted by: Sharon Dupree | February 6, 2009, 5:15 pm 5:15 pm
Why does it matter whether someone reports to the President or a Cabinet Secretary? They ALL follow the President’s policies, and serve at his pleasure. Within the executive branch, there is only one Boss that matters.
Posted by: jock59801 | February 6, 2009, 5:33 pm 5:33 pm
We’ve just elected the Chicago mafia. The most corrupt and damaging administration in history.
Posted by: Maura | February 6, 2009, 5:37 pm 5:37 pm
to all
i’m writing about another matter and that is, the republicans and how they are disrespecting president obama, and as a viewer i don’t like it.
i’m sick and tired of them talking about their concervative values, as if they are the only ones on this earth with values or are one who have any.
i don’t care about their so called values all i care about is how am i going to pay rent and put food on my table.
at a time when our country needs healing and the families of those whom have passed on needs some calmness in their life all you have is a bunch of old men talking nonsense.
why wasn’t they worried about their values, when the decseions they made was responsible for the deaths and murders of over 4,000 18-30 year old kids and many more that are wounded that almost never get talked about.
where were their values when they stood by and watched people jumped from the windows of a burning building and die all because of the laws and polices that they passed allowed the terrorist to walk through our airports 30 times as if they worked there.
and where were their values, while people were swimming in infested waters just so that they can escape from the floods in thier homes and to get food for their families. so l ask the house and senate repbulicans, what happen to your values then? why you guys wasn’t on the tv and intenet then.
you know guys, i think every last one of these people are full of crap.
i’m sick of all this mess, so lets try and let the american people know what tricks the republicans are using.
and another thing as a african american i have to say that i was taken back with mr. limbaughs comments about our president.
it was racist and un called for.
he said, obama wants him to bend over so and put his hands on his ankles just because he’s black.
first of all he cannot bend over, because his but is too fat.
not only that, but big fat rush blimbaugh should bend over with his hands on his ankles, just in that position so he should ask obama for his forgiveness.
yes america, he’s a racist just like many of his racist republicans friends, that’s in the senate and in the house.
just like his father was and grandfather, can you imagine how his ancestors acted, probably like him rocking from side to side like a walrus, calling people names, trying to make people feel bad, looking down on people and judging them according to his standards and then trying to justify his actions by saying it’s freedom of speech.
don’t be fooled by this guys, if he love his country so much let him give up his 40 million dollar a year job, and then tell him to run for senate or house so he can make the
changes that are nesscary.
what a great joke
peace out
patricia ward
Posted by: patricia ward | February 6, 2009, 8:41 pm 8:41 pm
his is republican diversionary BS…More crap to cahnge the subject of them NOT DOING THE PEOPLES BUSINESS __AND GOING AGAINST THE MIDDLE CLASS>
STOP THIS CALL THE CONGRESS_1.800.828.0498-_ON THIS AND THE STIMULUS
Posted by: bink | February 7, 2009, 5:38 pm 5:38 pm
This is republican diversionary BS…More crap to change the subject of them NOT DOING THE PEOPLES BUSINESS __AND GOING AGAINST THE MIDDLE CLASS>
STOP THIS CALL THE CONGRESS_1.800.828.0498-_ON THIS AND THE STIMULUS
Posted by: bink | February 7, 2009, 6:00 pm 6:00 pm
to Patricia-
sorry you feel that way.
i feel the same way about democrats. they dropped charges against the mastermind behind the USS cole attack, my feeling is, because they made a deal with Al Queada if they drop charges Al Queada won’t attack us.. lets see if that comes true.
the democrats are about having us depend on the government.
give a man a fishing pole and teach him how to fish then he can fed his family on his own (repubican philosphy)
fish for the man and feed his family, thus he becomes depend on you (democrat philosphy).
this pork bill is all payback from the bush year and popularity for the stimilus bill is at 37 percent. CBO (Congressional budget office)says we do not need the bill.. the stimilus bill is like trying to keep a dead car battery alive, but when you turn off the car, you have to restart it again (more stimulus) and on and on it goes. it does not work, it onmly feeds government and very little of it goes to the american people.. Obama’s recent excutitve order said that only union companies can bid for government jobs, unions only make up of 17 perscent of the population while 83 percent are non union.this will hurt us even more.
i dont support this stimulus. i dont support Obama’s policy (why should i have to pay for murdering a heartbeat and pay for other countries to abort their babies? under obama there will be no term limit to abort a baby), this is waht Rush meant when he said i hope Obama fails, he said he supports him as president but does not support his POLICY this has nothing to do with race, it has everything to do with Obama’s POLICY (dropping charges agaisnt gitmo terrorist, making us pay for abortion, closing gitmo with no clear plan) that is waht Rush means and i agree with him, i support Obama as my rightfully elected president but i hope his POLICIES fails. it is no different from the 8 years of the liberals wishing Bush dead and not only that a newspaper in 2002 even said “i hope bush fails”. so really if you liberals want the country to unite, you need to start first (remind you of the last 8years-you cant throw a tantrum then expect all to be fine).
the media saying how “BIpartisan” obama isbeing is BS, it’s a cover to show that he is tryng ot be nuetruel, he is not.
Daschle tax problem was nothing compared to Giethner, and Daschle was man enough to step aside. why is obama picking these guys who are clearly not following the law (wheres transparency??) why is he continuing to hire lobbyist (17 and counting-again, where is transparency).
Obama is a puppet (if you saw him sign the excutive order to close gitmo,he had to pause, stutter and ask his right hand man how to explain what he was doing-again,shows he is a puppet).
ipray for America because now for the first time in a long time, i am afriad again. Obama is going to get us killed because of his naivety and inexperience.
Posted by: gopalin | February 8, 2009, 3:25 pm 3:25 pm
Isn’t the authority for the census under the Legislative Branch of government in the Constitution? That being the case the president has no constitutional right run or control how the census is done.
Posted by: Krolart | February 9, 2009, 1:32 pm 1:32 pm
I have lived in Chicago and the Chicago area all my life and this is typical of Democrats. It’s just a massive power grab away from the people.
The Census Bureau is supposed to be somewhat isolated and apolitical.
This is just terrible. But this is how these types of Democrats work. Hopefully, we can press the media to report it.
This is outright theft.
Posted by: Alz | February 9, 2009, 4:05 pm 4:05 pm
The Census Bureau did not decide in 2000 to use only ‘actual’ counts. I believe the decision was made by the Supreme Court.
Posted by: rocks | February 10, 2009, 2:44 pm 2:44 pm
This would be front page news if Bush had done this. I have to search for it on the internet. This is the worst attempt to control and manipulate the election process I have ever seen since the democrats learned to manipulate absentee ballots.
Posted by: Chris | February 10, 2009, 7:15 pm 7:15 pm
Rep.Issa: This clearly puts Democracy back on the table and tyranny in the trash where it belongs.
Posted by: 2roads | February 12, 2009, 9:40 pm 9:40 pm
Now that time has pasted we see that Obama is nothing but a political animal. He does nothing unless he can gain politically. The country fourth or even fifth, himself first, his misaligned values second and the financial gain of those around him third. The people of American are not even on the list! What a shame
Posted by: Richard | April 30, 2010, 7:52 am 7:52 am