President Obama is “tapping Robert M. Groves, a University of Michigan professor who has pushed the use of statistical sampling, to be the next census director,” the AP reports.
A Commerce Department official who demanded anonymity said the White House will make the announcement later Thursday.
Groves is an expert in survey methodology and statistics who served as an associate director of the Census Bureau from 1990 to 1992. He and others recommended that the 1990 census be statistically adjusted to make up for an undercount, only to be overruled by then Republican Commerce Secretary Robert Mosbacher, who called it political tampering.
The nomination is subject to Senate confirmation. It could get interesting, since we are currently one year out from “the high-stakes decennial head count, which will be used to apportion House seats.”
(image courtesy of The Page)
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