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The Senate on Thursday confirmed Robert Santos as head of the Census Bureau, making him the primary particular person of shade to function everlasting director of the company that counts the US inhabitants, balances the variety of electors to the Electoral School and tracks adjustments to demographics and wealth within the nation.
The 58-to-35 vote to fill the place with a everlasting director helped deliver closure to a tumultuous interval wherein the previous director resigned out of concern that the company had turn out to be a political weapon underneath the Trump administration.
In January, the previous director, Steven Dillingham, left the job citing issues that the Trump administration’s threats to deport undocumented immigrants had brought on a chilling impact on survey response, undermining correct inhabitants counts through the 2020 census. Mr. Dillingham’s time period had been set to run out in December.
The bureau, which has historically performed a largely apolitical function as an information assortment physique, additionally grew to become a political goal due to its function in redistricting. Beneath President Donald J. Trump, the bureau was ordered to tally undocumented immigrants in what Democratic strategists saw as an effort to strip immigrants from the inhabitants depend used to allocate Home seats.
The Trump administration additionally tried so as to add a citizenship query to the 2020 census. That provision was blocked by the Supreme Court in 2019 and deserted by the Trump administration as time ran brief so as to add the query to survey types.
Many see the nomination of a Latino to move the bureau as symbolic of a reversal in course underneath the Biden administration.
“I think a lot of the controversy in 2020 and ongoing has been about people of color or immigrants, or who’s counted, who’s in, who’s out, and those kinds of issue perennially come up,” mentioned Carl Tobias, a legislation professor on the College of Richmond in Virginia. “So I think it’s valuable to have somebody who is a person of color in that position.”
Mr. Santos can also be a prominent statistician who drew help from quite a few Republicans in a listening to earlier than the Homeland Safety and Governmental Affairs Committee in August, together with Senators Mitt Romney of Utah, Rob Portman of Ohio and Ron Johnson of Wisconsin. Mr. Romney and Mr. Portman have been among the many 10 Republican senators who joined 48 Democrats to substantiate Mr. Santos.
Mr. Santos at the moment serves as vice president and chief methodologist on the City Institute in Washington and has labored extensively in survey sampling, finding out outreach to undocumented immigrants, refugees and different deprived populations.
Mr. Santos will step in to supervise a division that has been severely hampered in its efforts by the pandemic, which compelled the 2020 census to be carried out with a host of unfamiliar challenges, together with mail delays and novel difficulties reaching folks by cellphone or in particular person. He can be tasked with managing these challenges by his five-year time period, which ends in 2026.
Democrats hailed the vote as a key addition to the Biden administration and one designed to revive the nonpartisan nature of the job.
“We need to protect our census from the pressures of partisan politics, and Mr. Santos is a perfect fit,” Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the bulk chief, mentioned in a press release. “I am confident that Mr. Santos will restore trust and integrity to one of the most important agencies in government.”
Although Mr. Santos’s work will maintain deep implications for the political panorama and can produce the experiences that inform home financial coverage, he has pressured that he wouldn’t let politics form his tasks.
“Although this is a political appointment, I am no politician,” he mentioned at his affirmation listening to in July.
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