BE SMART ABOUT: Thomas Brunell, Unqualified to Lead the Census Bureau

Another person who fundamentally hates the mission of the department they are picked to lead is about to be chosen by Trump.  In this case it's Thomas Brunell, a Texas professor with no government experience likely to lead the Census Bureau. 

Brunell, a political science professor, has testified more than half a dozen times on behalf of Republican efforts to redraw congressional districts, and is the author of a 2008 book titled “Redistricting and Representation: Why Competitive Elections Are Bad for America.”

The pick would break with the long-standing precedent of choosing a nonpolitical government official as deputy director of the U.S. Census Bureau. The job has typically been held by a career civil servant with a background in statistics. It does not require Senate confirmation, so Congress would have no power to block the hire.

Brunell’s background makes him an unusual choice for the deputy director role. Based on his published curriculum vitae, he appears to have little experience in federal statistics or at managing a big organization.

Brunell wrote the book cited repeatedly by Republicans to support their partisan gerrymandering efforts across the country, yet may lead the Census Bureau.  This is unbelievable.

The choice would mark the administration’s first major effort to shape the 2020 census, the nationwide count that determines which states lose and gain electoral votes and seats in the House of Representatives.

In early May 2017, Director John Thompson of the U.S. Census Bureau abruptly resigned after Congress refused to provide adequate funding for the upcoming 2020 census.  The underfunding of the census and the resignation of the highly experience bureau director combine to threaten the reliability of the decennial census and creates an opening for the administration to misallocate House members and electoral votes to their advantage. This could have serious long term implications.

Every decade since 1790, as required by the Constitution, the federal government has undertaken a painstaking census of its people, the accuracy and fairness of which serves the interests of both political parties and of every citizen. The decennial count is used to apportion seats in the House of Representatives and set the boundaries of congressional districts. It determines how tens of billions of dollars in federal aid are divvied up.

An accurate census is crucial to properly allocating representatives at both the federal and state level. Congressional Republican have been pushing the agency to cut costs, ignoring inflation and the nearly 10% growth of the nation's population. Republican underfunding of the bureau damage census takers' ability to accurately account for those population most difficult to count - low-income Americans and minorities; coincidentally, or not, these are the same demographic groups most likely to vote for Democrats.

The fate of the census under Trump has been closely watched by voting-rights advocates worried that the administration — which has already made unsupported claims about voter fraud — might nudge it in directions that over- or undercount some Americans. Subtle bureaucratic choices in the wording and administration of the census can have huge consequences for who is counted, and how it shifts American voting districts.

Trump's repeated efforts to discredit voter registration data and government employment numbers leave census officials worried that a random tweet from him could discourage more people from participating. Census professionals worry that the administration’s efforts to deport undocumented immigrants could make them wary of providing information about themselves and where they live.

ACTION: Call your congresspeople and ask that they push Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross and the White House to name a qualified replacement for John Thompson as soon as possible, and to increase the budget allocation for the agency so the Constitutionally required decennial census can be performed accurately.

Sources: 

https://www.politico.com/story/2017/11/21/trump-census-pick-causes-alarm-252571

http://smartdissent.com/article/constitutionally-mandated-census-must-be-saved

http://www.cnn.com/2017/11/22/politics/census-bureau-pick/index.html