Experts independently resurrect Census Bureau advisory committee axed by Trump administration

By MIKE SCHNEIDER A U S Census Bureau advisory committee made up of scientific experts that was axed by the Trump administration earlier this year is resurrecting itself and meeting Thursday with no official blessing or formal ties to the statistical agency Related Articles What to know about Brendan Carr the head of the Federal Communications Commission Kimmel s suspension is the latest display of Trump s growing power over the US media landscape Trump asks the Supreme Court for an emergency order to remove Lisa Cook from the Fed board Trump says he ll designate antifa as a terrorist group but offers meager details Harris says Buttigieg was her first choice for running mate but the pairing was too risky The reconstitution of the Census Scientific Advisory Committee rechristened with an Independent in front of its name is a defiant gesture by the research group against the Trump administration s elimination last winter of three advisory committees made up of outside experts from private industry and academia Unlike in past meetings no Census Bureau staffers will be involved directly or indirectly during Thursday s conference Will our scientific advice still find an ear at the Census Bureau I do not know commented University of North Carolina sociologist Barbara Entwisle who chairs the committee However it is a certainty that our recommendations will have no effect at all if we do not provide them The decision to get the committee members back together is the latest effort by statisticians demographers and other researchers to challenge statistical-system changes that they see as worrisome since President Donald Trump returned to the White House in January for a second term Since then details sets related to gender sexual orientation medical atmosphere change and diversity have disappeared from federal websites and workers and contractors who had been content guardians at statistical agencies either have departed or been forced out by efforts to shrink the federal governing body Last month Trump fired the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics after the agency made downward revisions to the number of jobs created in the spring Just last week the Census Bureau reported it was not able to renew a contract that maintained a website for an online society of users for its largest survey of American life And last month Trump instructed the Commerce Department to have the Census Bureau start work on a new census that would exclude immigrants who are in the United States illegally from the head count which determines political power and federal spending The th Amendment says that the whole number of persons in each state are to be counted for the once-a-decade census and any changes to how the census is conducted requires congressional approval During a confirmation hearing on Wednesday Joyce Meyer who has been nominated to be an under secretary of the Commerce Department which oversees the Census Bureau dodged a direct question about whether Trump should be able to conduct a new census without Congress changing the law but commented she would comply with the law Besides the Census Scientific Advisory Committee the U S Commerce Department last winter killed the Census Advisory Committee which advised on the upcoming census and the National Advisory Committee which offered insight on how to accurately count and collect details from racial ethnic and other communities At the time U S Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick commented the committees purposes have been fulfilled A coalition of civil rights groups were dismayed by the committees elimination describing them in a letter to Lutnick as a major setback for the bureau as it prepared for the census and modernized the work of figures collection Eliminating these committees threatens the bureau s ability to collect accurate comprehensive demographic and economic material they noted in the May letter sent by the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights Before the committees were eliminated the Census Bureau had appointed their members The agency s top leaders attended the committees biannual meetings and received their recommendations Members of the advisory committees worked for free except for journey expenses and lodging for meetings In a declaration the Census Bureau noted Wednesday that the agency gets outside input through a rulemaking process for the federal administration that invites the populace to make comments When sought if the Census Advisory Committee might follow the path of the reconstituted scientific panel Arturo Vargas its former chairman disclosed in an email We are still discussing options and determining how best to use the scant support to have the preponderance impact and exploring how another independent advisory committee is valued added Allison Plyer a past chair of the scientific advisory committee noted that the Census Bureau has inevitably benefited from the strategic advise of committee members who are experts in their fields They don t have that now mentioned Plyer chief demographer at The Records Center in New Orleans An outside perspective is incredibly key Follow Mike Schneider on the social platform Bluesky mikeysid bsky social