Leading Trump Census pick causes alarm
Source: Politico
The 2020 count might be put in the hands of an inexperienced professor who wrote that 'Competitive Elections are Bad for America.'
By DANNY VINIK and ANDREW RESTUCCIA 11/21/2017 05:06 AM EST
The Trump administration is leaning toward naming Thomas Brunell, a Texas professor with no government experience, to the top operational job at the U.S. Census Bureau, according to two people who have been briefed on the Bureaus plans.
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 choice would mark the administrations 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.
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 under-count 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.
Read more: https://www.politico.com/story/2017/11/21/trump-census-pick-causes-alarm-252571
hedda_foil
(16,375 posts)Fred Sanders
(23,946 posts)beyond evil.
hedda_foil
(16,375 posts)Dopers_Greed
(2,640 posts)Pacifist Patriot
(24,653 posts)A
Thor_MN
(11,843 posts)Those having trouble getting birth certificates can petition the census bureau for their own information and get a report showing their residence history. Normally, personal census info is withheld for 70 years. 1940 is the most recently released census.
With a GOP shill heading it, this route to proving citizenship would likely be selectively curtailed to deny voting rights to left leaning groups.
Bradical79
(4,490 posts)vkkv
(3,384 posts)voters... who are either stupid, greedy or racist. So..
LastLiberal in PalmSprings
(12,586 posts)They'll find some way to take congressional seats away from California and New York -- relatively liberal states -- and give to them conservative states like Texas or Oklahoma. Each of our congressmen already represent more people than congressmen in most other states. In other words, my vote is worth less than than one in a smaller state like Montana or Alaska.
Brunell sounds like the so-called "terrorism expert" Sebastian Gorka (he of goatee, unidentifiable accent and unrecognized doctoral degree) who has no experience with terror via academic studies or work experience. He has lots of opinions, however, all of which are contradicted by the facts.
Trump is making fundamental and long-lasting changes to our nation, by selecting young, conservative, and sometimes unqualified men (usually) to lifetime appointments as Federal judges and thus far a Supreme Court justice. He's decimating the State Department and substantially increasing the size of the Defense Department, which is probably the least effective way to combat terrorism. He continues to support Putin's efforts to influence our elections and divide the country. And now he wants to remake the census, probably by counting those people he likes and ignoring those he doesn't.
I thought the selection of Bush Jr. was the worst thing that could happen to our country (and it was, at the time), but having Trump in a position of nearly unchecked power has the potential of destroying the United States as we know it. And the world, if his Twitter fingers type out nuclear launch codes instead of an inane message.
mahina
(17,668 posts)We have to win back the house,all goo flows from there.
Crash2Parties
(6,017 posts)We assume they are there to fill the role in the traditional manner.
Like Betsy DeVoss, they are there to carry out an extremely conservative agenda, a task for which they are quite qualified.
geretogo
(1,281 posts)Farewell America .