Republicans ask if ‘interference’ by Biden White House may have distorted US census results to benefit Democrats in Congress

Sent by seventeen House Republicans, led by the ranking member of the House Oversight and Reform Committee Rep. James Comer (R-Kentucky), Friday’s letter points to final census numbers released earlier this week being “strikingly different” from “population evaluation estimates” released in December. These differences, the lawmakers wrote, appear to favor “blue states” – those run by Democrats – over Republican-governed “red states.” 

“For example, New York was estimated to have a population of 19,336,776, but was attributed an apportionment population much greater than that of 20,215,751, a difference of nearly 900,000 individuals,” the letter reads. It also points to New Jersey and Illinois as states that saw their population rise above the December estimates, while Republican states like Florida, Arizona, and Texas saw their numbers drop.

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Preliminary results released by the Census Bureau on April 26 actually spurred criticism from many liberals, as it was revealed Texas would be gaining two seats in the House of Representatives, while New York would be losing one. Just 89 more people counted would have let the traditionally liberal state keep their current number of representatives. 

Earlier estimates, however, saw Texas gaining three seats and New York losing as many as two. 

The Census Bureau says the differences in final counts and original estimates are “typically interpreted as error in the estimates and are used to inform research and methodological improvements over the decade.” The concerned Republicans pointed out that the discrepancies favor blue states at the expense of red ones.

“This trend calls into question whether there was any political interference with the apportionment results released by the Census Bureau,” they wrote. They also point to the Biden administration “rescinding [the] commonsense measure” ordered by Trump that would have excluded “illegal aliens from the apportionment count,” and the fact that the census results missed statutory deadlines by several months.

The Republicans went on to say that they had previously reached out to the Census Bureau about the results, but were redirected to the White House, another detail they say could mean there was interference from the Biden administration.

“The statute is clear,” they said. “It is the secretary of commerce who reports the apportionment count to the president, not the other way around.”

Citing the committee’s oversight authority, the GOP congressmen demanded Raimondo send them documents related to the census count by May 14, including any communications between Census Bureau staffers and White House officials. 

The apportionment results saw seven congressional seats shift between 13 states, with Texas gaining two and Colorado, Florida, North Carolina, Montana, and Oregon gaining one seat each, while California, Illinois, Michigan, New York, Ohio, West Virginia, and Pennsylvania will all be losing a seat.

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