The White House arranged a call on Monday with congressional leaders about the requested changes, but no one from the Census Bureau was on the call. The House Committee on Oversight and Reform will carefully examine the request, said U.S. Rep. Carolyn Maloney, who chairs the committee.
“The director of the Census Bureau was not even on today’s call, and the administration has refused for weeks to allow him to brief members of our committee, despite repeated requests," said Maloney, a Democrat from New York. “If the administration is trying to avoid the perception of politicizing the census, preventing the Census director from briefing the committee and then excluding him from a call organized by the White House are not encouraging moves."
The Census Bureau said that the goal of the delays is to ensure a complete and accurate count.
When field operations start in June, workers will be given personal protective equipment and guidelines for social distancing, the bureau said in a statement.
“In-person activities, including all interaction with the public, enumeration, office work and processing activities, will incorporate the most current guidance to promote the health and safety of staff and the public," the statement said.
Census Counts, a coalition of advocacy and civil rights groups conducting census outreach, said it supported the deadline delays. But the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials, which is doing census outreach, urged Congress to step in. The group said the challenges are understandable, but the delay is risky.
"The further enumeration operations take place from April 1, the less accurate and complete the count becomes," NALEO CEO Arturo Vargas said in a statement.
On Monday, he called on Congress to step up its oversight to "salvage Census 2020 and ensure Latinos — and others — are not undercounted."
The proposed revised deadline for redistricting doesn't give states license to proceed in a way that compromises public participation and constitutional rights, Vargas said.
Census historian Margo Anderson said the statutory deadlines are more than four decades old. The bureau has been flexible in dealing with past unexpected hurdles, such as during the 1850 census when returns from California were lost at sea. In that case, another state count was conducted in 1852, she said.
Former Census Bureau Director John Thompson said the bureau was “caught between a rock and a hard place."