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Politics : Just the Facts, Ma'am: A Compendium of Liberal Fiction -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Sully- who wrote (69305)	2/6/2009 5:02:20 AM
From: Sully-	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 90947

Elections do have consequences *** Under-covered Story, Overwhelmed by Pork Bill News Kevin D. Williamson NRO's Media Blog Greg points this out: <<< Congressional Quarterly is reporting that the director of the Census Bureau will report directly to the White House and not to Commerce Secretary-designate Judd Gregg. My sense from the story is that this is mostly about political optics. Black and Latino advocacy groups aren't fond of Gregg period, and they're not happy about the fact that he pushed back against emergency funding for the 2000 Census. >>> Now, why would the president want to take the census out of the hands of the people who have traditionally handled it and into the heart of his political apparatus? "Political optics," indeed. Obama accused the Bush administration of "politicizing" everything—science, the Justice Department, &c.—but there's no way he's putting one of his token Republicans in charge of the census, because the census plays a huge role in drawing up congressional districts and the like. This fact has not been lost on the Left: <<< Judd Gregg To Control 2010 Census. And, Why Not Trade Lieberman for a New Hampshire Democrat? ... ...Did we work so hard, raise so much money, spend so much time sleeping on floors and couches, trudge through the snows of Iowa, toil in the barrios, to give a rightwing conservative Republican control over the 2010 Census when history has shown that Republicans consider the Census just another dataset that can be altered to suit their political needs? >>> We can be sure that if the census is to be altered to suit anybody's political needs, Obama is taking steps to ensure that things go his way.** CQ coverage here. cqpolitics.com media.nationalreview.com

To: Sully- who wrote (69305)	2/8/2009 4:11:04 AM
From: Sully-	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 90947

Is a White House take over of the census constitutional? Midwesterner Samizdata blog MSNBC reports that: <<< The Capitol Hill publication Congressional Quarterly yesterday reported that the White House, responding to minority groups' concerns about Gregg's commitment to funding the census, has decided to have the director of the Census Bureau report directly to the White House. >>> Why am I expecting ACORN to get the census contract? In Article I, Section 2 the US Constitution orders that "The actual Enumeration shall be made within three Years after the first Meeting of the Congress of the United States, and within every subsequent Term of ten Years, in such Manner as they shall by Law direct." The Congress, by law directed that: <<< "The Secretary [of Commerce] shall perform the functions and duties imposed upon him by this title, may issue such rules and regulations as he deems necessary to carry out such functions and duties, and may delegate the performance of such functions and duties and the authority to issue such rules and regulations to such officers and employees of the Department of Commerce as he may designate." >>> As I read it, the Director of the Census must, by law, be within the Department of Commerce and under the direction of the (Senate approved) Secretary of Commerce who then reports to the president. Am I missing something? Correction: From reading through Title 13, Chapter 1 it appears obvious to me that the POTUS has no role in the census whatsoever beyond, with Senate approval, selecting the Secretary of Commerce and, also with Senate approval, selecting the Director of the Census who " shall perform such duties as may be imposed upon him by law, regulations, or orders of the Secretary." Hhmmm... No president mentioned. The Secretary of Commerce is the only authority the law recognizes. Since as commenter Laird points out, the Constitution did not place the census function in Article II - the Executive branch but in Article I - the Legislative branch, it is not at all within the President's reach unless the legislature places it there. I think that interpretation is supported by phrasing such as this taken from Subchapter 1 section 9 "No department, bureau, agency, officer, or employee of the Government, except the Secretary in carrying out the purposes of this title, shall ..." The Secretary of Commerce does not even report his findings to the President, but rather is instructed to 'publish' them. It looks quite clear to me that any incursion by the White House after those two Senate approved appointments is clearly against the law. samizdata.net

To: Sully- who wrote (69305)	2/8/2009 4:46:41 AM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 90947

Only Fox News Concerned With Obama's Census Bureau Coup By Noel Sheppard on On the Record NewsBusters.org newsbusters.org

To: Sully- who wrote (69305)	2/9/2009 3:55:47 AM
From: Sully-	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 90947

I Wonder... Jonah Goldberg The Corner I know it was discussed here earlier, but I have question: What would the lefty blogosphere say about Bush moving the census into the White House's domestic policy shop (AKA Karl Rove's office)? In particular, what if they did it at the behest of members of Bush's coalition? corner.nationalreview.com

To: Sully- who wrote (69305)	2/10/2009 10:03:39 AM
From: Sully-	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 90947

Head-Count Case By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY Monday, February 09, 2009 4:20 PM PT Census: Naming Republican Judd Gregg as Commerce secretary was a real act of bipartisanship. Now the Obama administration is trying to undo that good deed with a power grab We're beginning to see a recurring problem with this new White House team: It makes appointments with half its brain disengaged. Its vetting process is supposed to be the most thorough in history, but it misses basic stuff, like massive bills for back taxes. Blinded by its own brilliance, it trips over something obvious and falls flat on its face. The naming of Judd Gregg to be commerce secretary may be another case of this, though here the appointee is not the problem. Just the opposite. The senior senator from New Hampshire is a fiscal conservative apparently untouched by scandal. Like any good Republican, he opposes high taxes but does pay them. In fact, appointing him was a truly bipartisan act. It showed the Obama administration walking its talk. After all, Gregg as commerce secretary would oversee the Census Bureau. He would balance the influence of a Democratic White House and Democratic Congress, which otherwise would have the whole game to themselves. One of the first to note the significance of the Gregg appointment was conservative columnist Michael Barone, who said Gregg's supervision might prevent the abuse of sampling to cook the numbers. (Sampling, rather than a straight head count, is preferred by the Democrats because it tends to produce higher census numbers in areas where the poor and minorities predominate). If Gregg can keep statisticians straight, Barone said, "maybe it's worth his leaving the Senate." The Democratic base could see what was going on, and it didn't take the news as well. The Congressional Black Caucus voiced its "troubling concerns." The National Association of Latino Elected & Appointed Officials questioned Gregg's "willingness to ensure that the 2010 census produces the most accurate possible count of the nation's population." At that point the administration could have stuck to its guns and said something like, "We named Judd Gregg because he's a man of integrity. We trust him to oversee an honest, transparent census." Instead, it said it would be cutting Gregg out of the loop. A "senior White House official" told Congressional Quarterly last Wednesday that the director of the Census Bureau (in CQ's words) "will report directly to the White House and not the secretary of commerce." The administration later stepped back a bit, saying it wanted the census chief "to work closely with White House senior management" while apparently still reporting to the commerce secretary. But the import was much the same: The White House was not going to let this census get away. Now it's the right's turn for outrage, and with good reason. Even in the watered-down version of the story, the census director would be nominally working under Gregg but, in reality, answering to Obama's hyperpartisan Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel. Emanuel will have a role that Karl Rove could only dream of. So much for bipartisanship, transparency and a credible census. At this point in the story (which we're sure is not over), the Obama administration has generated distrust of its motives in both parties. Also, and not for the first time, it seems not to have thought things through. Had it remembered that a census was coming up and that Gregg would oversee it? If it had, it should have had the spine to insist that Gregg would exercise the full power of his office. But maybe it missed the census angle — that half-a-brain thing again. Is this what on-the-job training looks like at the White House? ibdeditorials.com

To: Sully- who wrote (69305)	2/10/2009 11:34:11 AM
From: Sully-	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 90947

Why Obama Wants Control of the Census Counting citizens is a powerful political tool. John Fund Wall Street Journal President Obama said in his inaugural address that he planned to "restore science to its rightful place" in government. That's a worthy goal. But statisticians at the Commerce Department didn't think it would mean having the director of next year's Census report directly to the White House rather than to the Commerce secretary, as is customary. "There's only one reason to have that high level of White House involvement," a career professional at the Census Bureau tells me. "And it's called politics, not science." The decision was made last week after California Rep. Barbara Lee, chair of the Congressional Black Caucus, and Hispanic groups complained to the White House that Judd Gregg, the Republican senator from New Hampshire slated to head Commerce, couldn't be trusted to conduct a complete Census. The National Association of Latino Officials said it had "serious questions about his willingness to ensure that the 2010 Census produces the most accurate possible count." Anything that threatens the integrity of the Census has profound implications. Not only is it the basis for congressional redistricting, it provides the raw data by which government spending is allocated on everything from roads to schools. The Bureau of Labor Statistics also uses the Census to prepare the economic data that so much of business relies upon. "If the original numbers aren't as hard as possible, the uses they're put to get fuzzier and fuzzier," says Bruce Chapman, who was director of the Census in the 1980s. Mr. Chapman worries about a revival of the effort led by minority groups after the 2000 Census to adjust the totals for states and cities using statistical sampling and computer models. In 1999, the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 in Department of Commerce v. U.S. House that sampling could not be used to reapportion congressional seats. But it left open the possibility that sampling could be used to redraw political boundaries within the states. Such a move would prove controversial. "Sampling potentially has the kind of margin of error an opinion poll has and the same subjectivity a voter-intent standard in a recount has," says Mr. Chapman. Starting in 2000, the Census Bureau conducted three years of studies with the help of many outside statistical experts. According to then Census director Louis Kincannon, the Bureau concluded that "adjustment based on sampling didn't produce improved figures" and could damage Census credibility. The reason? In theory, statisticians can identify general numbers of people missed in a head count. But it cannot then place those abstract "missing people" into specific neighborhoods, let alone blocks. And anyone could go door to door and find out such people don't exist. There can be other anomalies. "The adjusted numbers told us the head count had overcounted the number of Indians on reservations," Mr. Kincannon told me. "That made no sense." The problem of counting minorities and the homeless has long been known. Census Bureau statisticians believe that a vigorous hard count, supplemented by adding in the names of actual people missed by head counters but still found in public records, is likely to lead to a far more defensible count than sampling-based adjustment. The larger debate prompted seven former Census directors -- serving every president from Nixon to George W. Bush -- to sign a letter last year supporting a bill to turn the Census Bureau into an independent agency after the 2010 Census. "It is vitally important that the American public have confidence that the census results have been produced by an independent, non-partisan, apolitical, and scientific Census Bureau," it read. The directors also noted that "each of us experienced times when we could have made much more timely and thorough responses to Congressional requests and oversight if we had dealt directly with Congress." The bill's chief sponsor is New York Democratic Rep. Carolyn Maloney, who represents Manhattan's Upper East Side. "The real issue is who directs the Census, the pros or the pols," says Mr. Chapman. "You would think an administration that's thumping its chest about respecting science would show a little respect for scientists in the statistical field." He worries that a Census director reporting to a hyperpartisan such as White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel increases the chances of a presidential order that would override the consensus of statisticians. The Obama administration is downplaying how closely the White House will oversee the Census Bureau. But Press Secretary Robert Gibbs insists there is "historical precedent" for the Census director to be "working closely with the White House." It would be nice to know what Sen. Gregg thinks about all this, but he's refusing comment. And that, says Mr. Chapman, the former Census director, is damaging his credibility. "He will look neutered with oversight of the most important function of his department over the next two years shipped over to the West Wing," he says. "If I were him, I wouldn't take the job unless I had that changed." Mr. Fund is a columnist for WSJ.com. online.wsj.com