Virus delay sought for census deadlines

The Trump administration is seeking to delay deadlines for the 2020 census because of the coronavirus outbreak, a move that if approved would push back timetables for releasing data used to draw congressional and legislative districts, the chairman of the House oversight committee said Monday.

U.S. Rep. Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., said administration officials were asking that all field operations be postponed until June 1 and that the deadline for wrapping up the nation’s head count be pushed back until Oct. 31.

Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross asked Congress on Monday to grant his department a 120-day extension of statutory deadlines as a result of the outbreak. He said field operations will be delayed until June 1, and the deadline for finishing the head count would be pushed back from the end of July because of the pandemic.

Maloney said in a statement that the administration also is seeking to delay the deadline for delivering state population counts used for apportionment — the process of carving up congressional districts — from the end of this year to the end of next April.

The administration also is seeking to push back the deadline for giving states data for redistricting from next March to next July, the statement added.

The Census Bureau said in a statement that the goal of the delays would be to ensure a complete and accurate count. It has suspended field data collection activities in March because of the outbreak. It said Monday that 70 million households, some 48% of the total, have already responded to the questionnaire.