A New Draft Rule for the Census Seeks Sweeping Changes to How Political Power Is Allocated

TPM (Aug 11)

"The Trump administration is planning to dramatically reshape the data the Census Bureau collects, setting the stage for an audacious effort to curtail crucial information used in voting rights complaints and revive a right-wing effort, pursued in Trump’s first term, to exclude undocumented immigrants from the count used to determine how many members of Congress represent each state in Congress."

Census Proposal Would Stop Counting Undocumented Immigrants—and Ignore Race and Sexual Orientation

Wired (Aug 8)

"The US Department of Commerce, which oversees the Census Bureau, is circulating a proposed rule that would cease the collection of demographic data on racial minorities and LGBTQ+ people and prevent undocumented immigrants from being counted in the 2030 census, according to documents viewed by WIRED."

See a previous DCSS news item on the Census, "Inside Trump’s Stealth Trick to Rig the Census—and Congress"

How Will Methodology Restrictions Affect Demographic and Economic Data?

dataindex.us (Aug 12)

"On June 4, 2026 the Department of Commerce issued a new order “Disclosure Avoidance for Statistical Products” (DAO 216-26) that limits the types of privacy protection methods that the Census Bureau and Bureau of Economic Analysis can use for their data products.

"Data users noted early on that the order would likely affect data availability, and we are now beginning to learn the scope of that impact. For example, on August 4, 2026 the Census Bureau announced an indefinite delay in releasing data from the American Community Survey."

See a previous DCSS news item on the Commerce Dept policy, "Update on Commerce Department data confidentiality policy" (July 29)