We must protect the census

The following is from a New York Daily News editorial:

Federal Judge Lucy Koh out in San Jose was as blunt in her 78-page order continuing the census count as a polite Californian could be, writing that the Trump administration’s explanation for wanting to shut down the count on Sept. 30 “runs counter to the facts.”

In New York, we call that lying, and Koh caught Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross’ toadies in whopper after whopper. Her Thursday ruling to keep the count going past next week came just days after Commerce Department Inspector General Peg Gustafson’s 11-page report found that the Sept. 30 shutdown “increases the risks to obtaining a complete and accurate 2020 census,” which is very, very bad, and that “the decision to accelerate the Census schedule was not made by the Census Bureau,” which is also pretty terrible, though hardly surprising from the Trump administration.

The Census Bureau spent a decade preparing for the 2020 count, due to start on March 12 and run to July 31. But something else started in March,

COVID, scrambling everything. So in April, the Bureau wisely extended the count date to Oct. 31 and urged Congress to push back the final wrapup four months from year’s end to April 30, 2021. So far, so good.

In walked politics in the summer when Donald Trump offered a nonsense idea to exclude undocumented immigrants from congressional apportionment. Then the census got cut to Sept. 30, with a Dec. 31 finish, despite warnings that it would sour the numbers.

Now Koh has KO’D both dates, with the goal to get it right. Her ruling must stand.