Trump's census director resigning

U.S. Census Director Steven Dillingham pauses after speaking at a news conference to urge Arizonans to participate in the nation's once-a-decade census population count Thursday, Sept. 17, 2020, in Phoenix. Ending the 2020 census at the end of September instead of the end of October, could cost Florida and Montana congressional seats and result in Texas, Florida, Arizona, Georgia, and North Carolina losing $500 million in federal funding for healthcare for its neediest residents. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin, Pool)
U.S. Census Director Steven Dillingham pauses after speaking at a news conference to urge Arizonans to participate in the nation's once-a-decade census population count Thursday, Sept. 17, 2020, in Phoenix. Ending the 2020 census at the end of September instead of the end of October, could cost Florida and Montana congressional seats and result in Texas, Florida, Arizona, Georgia, and North Carolina losing $500 million in federal funding for healthcare for its neediest residents. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin, Pool)

The director of the U.S. Census Bureau is resigning in the wake of allegations that he had supported a partisan push to deliver data to President Donald Trump before the president leaves office.

Steven Dillingham's resignation will be effective Wednesday, when the new Biden administration takes control of the federal government, according to a farewell message he sent to the staff that was posted on the bureau's website Monday. Under federal law, his term as director had been scheduled to continue through December.

Reports last week from bureau whistleblowers said political appointees were pressuring staff there to release data by last Friday, regardless of its accuracy. Those reports prompted calls from civil-rights groups and Democratic lawmakers for him to resign -- and the inspector general at the Commerce Department, which oversees the Census Bureau, revealed that it had opened an inquiry into Dillingham's management of the agency.

"That the census director would push expert, career staff to ignore quality standards to achieve an unlawful policy for an outgoing president is appalling," said Wade Henderson, interim president and chief executive of the Leadership Conference, and one of those calling for his resignation.

In a statement posted on the bureau website, Dillingham said he had not heard any suggestions that the data he had asked for broke any laws or rules.

"The reported whistleblower concerns appear to be misunderstandings regarding the planned process for the review and potential postings of data, and the agreed upon need to apply data quality standards," he wrote.

"The envisioned data tabulation was described to me as a single column of state numbers (or estimates) a page or two in length. I was informed that the data review and any potential publication of summary numbers or estimates would comply with quality standards used by the Bureau in producing 'technical reports.'"

By law, congressional apportionment must be based on actual numbers, not estimates. The government never said how it planned to produce an actual tally of unauthorized immigrants by state, which does not exist.

Dillingham was appointed director two years ago as the bureau was embroiled in lawsuits over the Trump administration's push to add a question about citizenship to the 2020 census, an effort that was ultimately blocked by the Supreme Court.

At the time of his confirmation, statistics experts and lawmakers from both political parties hailed him as a professional who they hoped could calmly navigate the agency through the roiling partisan battles surrounding the count.

He had earlier run two other federal statistical agencies and held a range of other federal positions, from the Peace Corps to the Office of Personnel Management.

But after the census was hit with delays caused by the coronavirus pandemic and Trump issued a memo declaring his intention to exclude people living in the country illegally from being counted for apportionment, Dillingham's job became more fraught.

The administration pushed the bureau to stick to a schedule that would allow Trump to receive state population counts before leaving office but which bureau career staff said would compromise accuracy. Several federal courts blocked his effort, but the U.S. Supreme Court last month said it was too soon to rule on it.

Census data is used to determine distribution of $1.5 million in federal funds annually, along with congressional apportionment and redistricting for the next decade. Excluding immigrants could give an advantage to Republicans in House seats and the Electoral College.

POLITICAL APPOINTEES

The administration last year added an unprecedented number of political appointees to the bureau, causing concern that they would attempt to politicize the nonpartisan, once-a-decade count.

A letter last week from Inspector General Peggy Gustafson to Dillingham said bureau employees had told her they were under "significant pressure" from two of those appointees to produce a report by the end of the week related to the president's memo, even though staffers said the data was not ready. One senior employee described what they were being asked to do as "statistically indefensible."

The employees said Dillingham had categorized the report as the bureau's "top priority," the letter said, adding: "OIG [Office of Inspector General] is also aware that you inquired into a financial reward for speed on this directive."

Dillingham denied setting a deadline for the data and said that "upon learning of these concerns" last Tuesday, he told bureau officials that "those involved should 'stand down' and discontinue their data reviews."

The revelations prompted calls for his resignation from an array of census experts, immigrant advocates and Democratic lawmakers.

Rep. Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., chairwoman of the House Committee on Oversight and Reform, said Dillingham "appears to have acceded repeatedly to the Trump Administration's brazen efforts to politicize the census." She urged President-elect Joe Biden to remove him if he did not resign.

On Friday, a federal court barred the agency from producing any data related to the order before Biden takes office. Government lawyers signed an agreement that the bureau would not release state population data before Trump leaves office, ending his attempt to exclude immigrants in the country illegally.

Terri Ann Lowenthal, a former staff director of the House census oversight subcommittee, called Dillingham's resignation a necessary step forward.

"It is incredibly important for Census Bureau staff, Congress, stakeholders, and the public to have full confidence that the Census Director can always put science ahead of partisan considerations," she said. "I think that confidence has been shattered, and the director's resignation will help the agency rebuild trust as it prepares to release the all-important data from the 2020 census."

​​​​​Information for this article was contributed by Tara Bahrampour of The Washington Post; and by Michael Wines of The New York Times.

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