Census Bureau to miss deadline, jeopardizing Trump’s exclusion plan
The Census Bureau plans to announce it will miss a year-end deadline for handing in numbers used for divvying up congressional seats, a delay that could undermine President Donald Trump’s efforts to exclude people in the country illegally from the count if the figures aren’t turned in before President-elect Joe Biden takes office.
It will be the first time that the Dec. 31 target date is missed since the deadline was implemented more than four decades ago by Congress.
A census official who was not authorized to speak publicly on the matter confirmed the delay to the Associated Press on Wednesday.
Internal documents obtained earlier this month by the House Committee on Oversight and Reform show that Census Bureau officials don’t see the apportionment numbers being ready until days after Biden is inaugurated Jan. 20.
Once in office, Biden could rescind Trump’s presidential memorandum directing the Census Bureau to exclude people in the country illegally from numbers used for divvying up congressional seats among the states. An influential GOP adviser had advocated excluding them from the apportionment process in order to advantage Republicans and non-Hispanic whites.
“The delay suggests that the Census Bureau needs more time to ensure the accuracy of census numbers for all states,” said Terri Ann Lowenthal, a former congressional staffer who specializes in census issues.
Final stretch in Georgia:
Campaigns and outside groups are making a final push to turn out election-weary Georgians whose votes will determine control of the U.S. Senate, from a crush of text messages and television ads to dueling visits from President-elect Joe Biden and outgoing President Donald Trump.
More than 2.5 million people — about half the turnout of last month’s presidential election — had already cast their ballots early, in person or by absentee ballot, by Wednesday morning.
With margins in the Jan. 5 runoffs expected to be tight, the campaigns for Republican U.S. Sens. David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler and Democratic challengers Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock are all focused on mobilizing voters.
That means everything from individual voter contacts urging early voting, which ends Thursday, to last-minute campaign stops from national headliners trying to boost Election Day turnout. The Democrats’ campaigns announced Wednesday that Biden would campaign Monday in Atlanta with Ossoff and Warnock.
Trump already had announced plans to rally Monday evening, just hours before polls open, with the Republican senators in the north Georgia town of Dalton.
Congressman-elect dies of COVID-19:
The death of a newly elected U.S. representative from Louisiana of complications related to COVID-19 stunned the state’s political circles Wednesday.
Luke Letlow, who was 41 and had no known underlying health conditions, died Tuesday night at Ochsner-LSU Health Shreveport just days before he was scheduled to be sworn into office, according to his spokesman Andrew Bautsch.
Bautsch asked for privacy
for Letlow’s family “during this difficult and unexpected time.”
Republican U.S. Sen. Bill Cassidy, a doctor who tested positive for the coronavirus earlier this year and has since recovered, seemed almost at a loss for words in a Twitter video he posted Tuesday night about Letlow’s death, stopping at one point before saying: “It just, just, just, just brings home COVID can kill. For most folks it doesn’t, but it truly can. So, as you remember Luke, his widow, his children in your prayers, remember as well to be careful with COVID.”
The United States flew strategic bombers over the Persian Gulf on Wednesday for the second time this month, a show of force meant to deter Iran from attacking American or allied targets in the Middle East.
One senior U.S. military officer said the flight by two
Bombers fly over Gulf:
Air Force B-52 bombers was in response to signals that Iran may be planning attacks against U.S. allied targets in neighboring Iraq or elsewhere in the region in coming days, even as President-elect Joe Biden prepares to take office.
The officer was not authorized to publicly discuss internal assessments based on sensitive intelligence and spoke on condition of anonymity.
The B -5 2 b o mber mission, flown round trip from an Air Force base in North Dakota, reflects growing concern in Washington, in the final weeks of President Donald Trump’s administration, that Iran will order further military retaliation for the U.S. killing last Jan. 3 of top Iranian military commander Gen. Qassem Soleimani.
A Chinese drugmaker said Wednesday its coronavirus vaccine was found to be 79.3% effec
China vaccine:
tive at preventing infection in preliminary data from the final round of testing, moving Beijing closer to possibly being able to fulfill its pledge to supply other developing countries.
The announcement by a unit of state-owned Sinopharm gave the first official data from a Chinese vaccine’s late-stage trial. Its reported effectiveness rate is behind Pfizer Inc.’s vaccine at 95% and Moderna Inc.’s at 94%.
Scientists have cautioned coronavirus vaccines may only be about as effective as flu vaccines, which generally are 50% effective.
Sinopharm is one of at least five Chinese developers that are in a global race to create vaccines for the disease that has killed more than 1.8 million people.
Governor cancels outdoor inaugural:
New Hampshire’s Republican governor said Wednesday that he is canceling his outdoor inau
guration ceremony next month because of public safety concerns — namely, armed protesters who have been gathering outside his home in the weeks since he issued a mask order.
“My first responsibility is ensuring the safety of my family and our citizens” Gov. Chris Sununu said in a news release.
“For weeks, armed protesters have increasingly become more aggressive, targeting my family, protesting outside my private residence, and trespassing on my property — an outdoor public ceremony simply brings too much risk. We do not make this decision lightly but it is the right thing to do,” Sununu said.
In consultation with Attorney General Gordon MacDonald, Sununu said, he and Senate President Chuck Morse, acting House Speaker Sherm Packard and the Executive Council will be sworn in during a small ceremony Jan. 7.