A key House Republican on civil service matters has warned the White House of potential repercussions from what he terms a potential politicization of next year’s Census.
Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., the ranking GOP member of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, was reacting to published reports that the Obama administration was considering having the Census director report directly to the White House chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, rather than to the Commerce secretary. Issa said such a move risks "severely jeopardizing the fairness and accuracy of the 2010 Census" and said that Emanuel, a former Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Chairman, "has no business overseeing the activities of the Census Bureau, a division of the Commerce Department that needs to remain free and clear of any and all political considerations."
"This decision will also jeopardize Census program funding and trigger unanimous opposition to your next Census director out of fear that a respectable Federal agency is being politicized," the letter added.
The Census traditionally has been a politically testy operation because of disputes regarding how well minority group members are counted, which in turn translates into government decisions regarding funding of programs and the allocation of House seats.
