Warren Demands Lutnick Explain Census Political-Interference Ban — SkimNews
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- Elizabeth Warren sent letters Wednesday to Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and other officials demanding an explanation for the removal of language banning political interference from the Census Bureau's parent agency's scientific integrity policy, citing NPR's reporting on the unannounced revisions dated Aug. 19.
- The updated policy no longer lists "protection from inappropriate influence" among the "hallmarks of scientific integrity," a change that came one day after the bureau released a document from a team with ties to the America First Policy Institute, a think tank founded by Trump's first-term officials.
- Data and election experts have criticized that team's document — which made claims about non-citizen voting — as questionable and below the bureau's research standards, according to NPR, which first reported the team's AFPI ties.
- The Trump administration proposed this month excluding certain non-U.S. citizen residents from the census count that determines each state's congressional districts and Electoral College votes — a first in U.S. history — and separately proposed ending the census's production of race and ethnicity data.
- Warren warned that the census changes would affect redistricting, Federal Reserve monetary policy decisions based on employment statistics, Bureau of Economic Analysis inflation data, and civil rights enforcement, and is asking the Fed how it ensures the accuracy of Census data it uses.
- The Federal Reserve, through spokesperson Eric Kollig, said it plans to respond to Warren's letter, which sets an Oct. 7 deadline for detailed answers; the Commerce Department and Office of Management and Budget did not immediately comment.
Why it matters: Warren's Oct. 7 deadline puts the Commerce Department on the clock to justify a quiet policy edit that removed a guardrail against political interference in federal statistics, while the Fed's separate response signals that the reliability of data underpinning interest-rate decisions and congressional apportionment is now under congressional scrutiny.
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