2020 Census

Quote :

Despite the pandemic that has thrown everything out of whack, the Census Bureau is cutting short its efforts to knock on doors to count everyone for the 2020 census. It will stop them on September 30, rather than October 30, as originally planned. About 4 out of 10 households have not yet been counted, and they are overwhelmingly those of people of color, immigrants, and traditionally undercounted groups.

“It’s going to be impossible to complete the count in time,” said one of the census managers. “I’m very fearful we’re going to have a massive undercount.” At the same time, in an unprecedented move that is already facing lawsuits, the administration is trying to avoid counting undocumented immigrants, which will badly undercount cities. “The end result would be [overrepresentation] for the White non-Hispanic population and greater undercounts for all other populations including the traditionally hard-to-count,” Former Census Bureau Director John Thompson told the House Oversight and Reform Committee on Wednesday.

The Census Bureau explained the reason for the shortened census count: “We are currently evaluating our operations to enable the Census Bureau to provide this data in the most expeditious manner and when those plans have been finalized we will make an announcement.”

Question: By what authority does the president cut short the census?  It's a constitutionally-mandated event every ten years, and the president has absolutely zero say in that.  None.

Lawsuits smawsuits.  This doesn't need to go to the courts.  The people in charge of the census just need to say, "No Mr. President, this is not under your authority."