Congressman Patrick McHenry (NC-10), Ranking Member of the House Subcommittee on Information Policy, Census, and National Archives, offered five questions today to be asked of Commerce Secretary-nominee Governor Gary Locke at his Senate confirmation hearing on Wednesday, March 18th.

Questions regarding the conduct of the 2010 Decennial Census led to Senator Judd Gregg withdrawing his name from consideration for Commerce Secretary.  The controversy surrounding the census has centered on two points of contention.

The first is the Obama Administration’s desire to exert political pressure over the Census Bureau by moving it from the Commerce Department into the White House. 

Secondly, despite being prohibited by federal law, the prerogative of some partisans to manipulate census data threatens the reliability of the country’s statistical system.  Governor Locke has signaled his support for data adjustment “as an accuracy check.”

Congressman McHenry encouraged Members of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation to ask the following five questions of Governor Locke.

1. What is your definition of inappropriate political interference by the White House regarding the 2010 Decennial Census?

2. How would you respond to White House attempts to exert political influence over the conduct of the census?

3. The Census Bureau expects to hire and train 1.2 million temporary workers to conduct non-response follow-up with about 47 million households over the course of 10 weeks in 2010.  How do you plan to minimize fraud and tampering of data during street-level canvassing operations?

4. Do you believe the Census Bureau’s primary goal of the 2010 Decennial Census should be to count every person, once, only once, and at the right place?

5. Will you direct the Census Bureau to produce a two-number census – one that is an actual enumeration and one that uses statistical adjustment – and if so, will you release the adjusted figure for legislative redistricting or the allocation of federal funds?

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