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Democrat
overseeing
U.S.
Census
funding
would
block
form
reprint...
David
Shepardson
Reuters.com
WASHINGTON
- A U.S.
House
Democrat
who
oversees
funding
for the
U.S.
Census
Bureau
said on
Tuesday
he would
not
support
money
being
spent to
reprint
forms if
the
Trump
administration
won
court
approval
to
include
a
contentious
question
on
citizenship.
Printing
of the
forms
for the
2020
census
has
started
and
“amending
the form
could
potentially
cost
hundreds
of
millions
of
additional
taxpayer
dollars,”
Representative
José
Serrano,
who
chairs
the
Commerce,
Justice,
Science
Appropriations
Subcommittee,
said in
a
statement.
Serrano
said he
has “no
intention
of
allowing
this
flagrant
waste of
money,”
urging
U.S.
President
Donald
Trump to
give up
his
fight to
add a
question
about
citizenship
to the
decennial
population
survey.
The
U.S.
Census
Bureau
is part
of the
Commerce
Department,
which
did not
immediately
comment
on
Serrano’s
statement.
In
January,
the
government
awarded
R.R.
Donnelley
& Sons
Company,
a $114
million
contract
to
coordinate
and
produce
2020
Census
printing
materials,
including
printing
more
than 600
million
documents
to be
mailed
to more
than 130
million
households.
Civil
rights
groups
and some
states
strongly
object
to the
citizenship
question
proposal,
calling
it a
Republican
ploy to
scare
immigrants
into not
participating.
That
would
lead to
a
population
undercount
in
Democratic-leaning
areas
with
high
immigrant
populations.
The
census
is used
to allot
seats in
the
House of
Representatives
and to
distribute
$800
billion
in
federal
services
such as
schools.
Trump
and his
supporters
say it
makes
sense to
know how
many
non-citizens
are
living
in the
United
States.
The
Republican’s
hard
line
policies
on
immigration
have
punctuated
his
presidency
and 2020
re-election
campaign.
The
Supreme
Court
ruled on
June 27
that
administration
officials
had
given a
"contrived"
here
rationale
for
including
the
question
but left
open the
possibility
they
could
offer a
plausible
one.
Trump
has said
he was
considering
an
executive
order
here to
add the
question.
The U.S.
Constitution
specifically
assigns
the job
of
overseeing
the
census
to
Congress,
limiting
the
authority
of the
president
over it.
U.S.
Attorney
General
William
Barr,
who was
appointed
by
Trump,
said on
Monday
that
“over
the next
day or
two,
you’ll
see what
approach
we’re
taking
and I
think it
does
provide
a
pathway
for
getting
the
question
on the
census.”
The
Department
of
Justice
filed
court
papers
on
Monday
announcing
new
lawyers
who will
take
over
handling
2020
census-related
cases
without
disclosing
a
reason.
Lawyers
for New
York and
the
American
Civil
Liberties
Union
contested
the
lawyer
shakeup,
saying
the
department
had not
provided
“satisfactory
reasons”
for the
substitutions
and told
a court
that
they
were now
concerned
about
delays
in
litigation.
Reporting
by David
Shepardson
and
Makini
Brice in
Washington;
Additional
reporting
by
Lauren
Tara
LaCapra
in New
York;
editing
by Grant
McCool
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