Trump Team Hires Another for Census Bureau

President Trump's administration has added a third executive to the US Census Bureau. Benjamin Overholt previously served as a Lead Statistician in the Office of Enterprise Data and Analytics at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC).

The administration has been accused of 'meddling' in the census process, after attempting to add a citizenship question; and more recently announced it would end its data collection a month early on September 30th, prompting a warning that this could mean hard-to-count communities being missed, and less accurate data being produced. In July, media reports said Census Bureau officials were concerned about the White House's adding two 'political operatives' to the Census team - Nathaniel Cogley as Deputy Director of Policy, and Adam Korzeniewski as Senior Advisor to Cogley. These appointments sparked accusations of political interference, and an internal watchdog - the Commerce Department's Office of Inspector General - has since asked for Cogley's and Korzeniewski's CVs and documents explaining the process by which they were given their positions. Census Bureau Director Steven Dillingham has described this process as 'overly burdensome'.

Overholt (pictured) joins with more than seven years' federal civil service, applying statistical methods to civil rights issues. Before his position at the EEOC, he was the sole statistician in the voting section of the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice; and he also served with the US.Army for about fourteen years. In his new role, Overholt will 'support the Bureau in ensuring 2020 Census data products are of the highest quality'.

Democrat politician Carolyn Maloney, who chairs the House Oversight and Reform Committee and has been calling for Cogley and Korzeniewski to be removed from their roles, responded to news of Overholt's appointment: 'The White House should be heeding the concerns of experienced career officials at the Census Bureau, not scheming about how to rig the process for political gain'.

Web site: www.census.gov .

All articles 2006-23 written and edited by Mel Crowther and/or Nick Thomas, 2024- by Nick Thomas, unless otherwise stated.