Warren demands Trump officials explain removing a ban on interference in census data
Senator Elizabeth Warren is demanding an explanation from the Trump administration regarding the removal of language banning political interference from the Census Bureau's scientific integrity policy. Critics fear this change, alongside other recent shifts, could undermine the reliability of national demographic and economic data.
Why it matters
The integrity of census data is foundational to political representation and federal funding, making any perceived politicization a significant concern for democratic institutions.
Trump administration officials are facing new demands from Congress to explain why the Census Bureau's parent agency removed language banning political interference from its scientific integrity policy.
In letters sent Wednesday to Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and other officials , Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, the top Democrat on the Senate Banking Committee, cites NPR's reporting on the change and raises concerns about how it could hurt the reliability of statistics about the country's demographics and economy.
"Amid the Trump Administration's broader assault on the integrity of the nation's statistical system, in which you and the Department have played a key role, you owe the public a clear explanation of why the Department removed this language and how it arrived at this decision," Warren wrote to Lutnick, who oversees the Census Bureau as the head of the Commerce Department.
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