Not a moment too soon, the Senate has confirmed President Obama's nominee to head the Census Bureau, and now preparations on the critical 2010 national head count can begin in earnest.
The official now responsible for that count is Robert Groves, 60, a respected survey researcher from the University of Michigan and a former associate director of the Census.
He has already found himself back in the identical controversy as when he left the Census in the 1990s. The dispute is over statistical sampling and it breaks down by party. Census takers going door to door and relying on mail-in questionnaires typically undercount inner-city dwellers and non-English speakers, people generally believed to skew heavily Democratic. The Census has long wanted to use statistical sampling techniques to make up for the undercount, but the Republicans have insisted on "actual Enumeration," a monumental task in a nation of 307 million people.
Groves was easily approved by the Senate Committee on Homeland Security, but a group of Republicans blocked a vote in the full Senate over concerns about statistical sampling; whether ACORN, the organization accused of vote fraud, would be among the volunteer organizations the Census enlists; to protest the timing of Sonia Sotomayor's Supreme Court hearings; and maybe just sheer cussedness.
Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid finally called a procedural vote to override the delays, and the 76-15 outcome was a good barometer of Senate sentiment on what was a needless and even reckless delay.
Now if only Americans will do their part by cooperating with the Census.
