Page 46 - Invited Paper Session (IPS) - Volume 1

IPS55 Hermann H. et al.
It is this environment that precipitates the concern with independence of
statistical offices. Because of the importance of official statistics it is to be
expected that elected politicians and their political appointees in the Executive
Branch as well as the members of Congress who are also elected would be
concerned about the activities of the statistical agencies and the numbers that
they produce. Moreover, a process which involves these disparate parties
including professional statisticians as well as elected politicians lends
credibility and unity to the resulting decisions. What must be guarded against
is a situation in which decisions are made as a result of partisan beliefs. There
is no easy way to avoid this and the directives by the Office of Management
and Budget and the Committee on National Statistics as well as global support
from the Fundamental Principles may be seen as necessary but may not be
sufficient. Transparency of the decision process and the voices of the
professional statisticians, particularly if they have dissenting opinions, must be
heard by the public. We will conclude with an example demonstrating how the
Congress, political forces in the Executive Branch, the judicial system and the
views of professional statisticians can come together.

4. Adding a Citizenship Question to the Decennial Census
On March 26, 2018 the Secretary of Commerce concluded that a
8
citizenship question should be added to the 2020 Decennial Census. It was
asserted that this proposal was intended to produce information on
citizenship at the census block level . The information was said to be necessary
9
for implementation of the Voting Rights Act. Currently, citizenship information
is available from the American Community Survey at the census block group
10
level . The Census Bureau can provide estimates of block data from block
group data by using statistical modelling techniques.
As a result of the Secretary’s decision several lawsuits were filed to
11
overturn this decision. These lawsuits were filed by a variety of interested
parties including multiple states, organizations such as the American Civil
Liberties Union, and private parties. They alleged, inter alia, that adding the

8 The Constitution provides that the conduct of the decennial census shall be determined by
the Congress and the, at that time, Republican controlled congress delegated that authority to
the Secretary of Commerce.
9 A census block is the smallest geographic unit used by the Census Bureau for tabulation of
100-percent data (data collected from all houses, rather than a sample of houses).
10 A census block group is a geographical unit used by the Census Bureau which is the next
largest geographic area than a block. It is the smallest geographic unit for which the bureau
publishes sample data, i.e. data which is only collected from a fraction of all households. A
block-group generally contains between 600 and 3000 people
11 Two of the authors of this paper – Katherine Wallman and Hermann Habermann – served as
experts in one or more of the lawsuits.

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