Protect the American Community Survey and nominate a permanent Director to the US Census Bureau.

Statistics are under attack in Congress! On April 18, Rep. Jeff Duncan (R-SC-3) introduced the innocuous-sounding Census Reform Act of 2013 (HR 1638), that would cancel the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey, Economic Census, Census of Agriculture and every other survey except for the ten-year population count. While attacks on these critical surveys are not new in the no-nothing wings of Congress, this flat rejection of the basic measures of our nation is especially galling due to the importance of Census data to all sectors of our economy and all levels of government. By nominating a permanent Director to the Census Bureau to fill the currently vacant position, the President would signal his support for the continuity of data collection and analysis that we rely on as a nation.