Comer Statement on Democrats’ Latest Accusations about the 2020 Census

WASHINGTON—House Committee on Oversight and Reform Ranking Member James Comer (R-Ky.) issued the following statement after Chairwoman Carolyn Maloney released leaked information about the 2020 Census and sent a letter to Department of Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross threatening a subpoena.

“If Chairwoman Maloney truly wanted to hear from the Census Bureau about the likelihood of delivering apportionment results on time, she should have invited actual census officials to testify at tomorrow’s hearing or at the last hearing we had on the issue. Census officials have continually provided frequent briefings with committee staff to provide an update on field operations and data processing. During these briefings, career officials have made clear the Census Bureau’s top priority is to provide a complete and accurate census. In contrast to uninformed leakers in the Census Bureau, high level career census officials state that the data anomalies identified during data processing are similar in nature to those found in prior censuses, do not indicate problems with the underlying data, and only affect less than 0.63% of the total data.

“As recently as November 24, census officials told the Oversight Committee that they were working on providing the requested information and had submitted information to the general counsel’s office for review.  Working on complying with these requests, while continuously updating the committee in briefings, is far from the ‘obstruction’ Chairwoman Maloney’s alleges. Today’s theatrics from the Democrats are simply another attempt to distract from the successes of the 2020 Census and sow doubt in the results.”

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