New Report Recommends Census Reforms

New Report Recommends Census Reforms

Noting that the �bureaucracy and law that govern the census have not been systemically altered in decades,� the Brennan Center for Justice has offered �a blueprint for reform�ing the law and policy of the decennial population count� to make future censuses more accurate, equitable, and legitimate.�

The report, �Improving the Census,� includes 19 proposals that the Center says �will free the Census Bureau from recurring problems that it has never squarely addressed and set it up to respond to future problems in a more flexible, effective, and democratically responsive way,� including:

1. �Establish the Census Bureau as its own executive agency�;
2. �Limit the number of political appointees�;
3. �Require political appointees to publicly disclose communications with the White House�;
4. �Remove the president from the congressional apportionment process�;
5. �Bar untimely and untested additions to the census questionnaire�;
6. �Restructure congressional oversight of the census�;
7. �Rigorously pursue oversight�;
8. �Revoke statutory limits on data collection methods�;
9. �Permit the director to extend the reporting deadlines for apportionment and redistricting data in emergencies�;
10. �Allow the bureau more freedom to collect data from educational institutions�;
11. �Facilitate changes to the census�s race and ethnicity questions�;
12. �Facilitate a sexual orientation and gender identity question”;
13. “Convene a National Academies panel to evaluate additional operational changes”;
14. �Change the residence rule�;
15. �Hold the Census Bureau and other agencies accountable for collecting home address data�;
16. Clarify the superseding e?ect of Title 13�s con?dentiality provisions”;
17. “Codify bureau policy requiring specialized review of aggregate data on sensitive populations”;
18. �Make the Census Bureau�s discretionary spending limits ?exible�; and
19. �Remove obsolete portions of the Census Act.�