A new bill could help protect the census after Trump-era interference

https://www.npr.org/2022/07/11/ [login to see] /census-political-interference-meddling-maloney-legislation
A bill introduced Monday in the U.S. House of Representatives could help the 2030 census and other upcoming national head counts avoid the years of meddling by former President Donald Trump's administration that dogged the country's most recent tally.

If it becomes law, the bill would put up additional roadblocks against any attempt by an administration to interfere with the next once-a-decade census, which is used to divvy up political representation and federal funding to communities across the U.S.

The proposal led by Rep. Carolyn Maloney — a Democrat from New York who chairs the House Oversight and Reform Committee that helps oversee the Census Bureau — comes after the Trump administration raised the risks of an incomplete and inaccurate count of the country's population in 2020 with its failed push for a previously untested census question about U.S. citizenship status and installation of political appointees with no obvious qualifications at the bureau, among other extraordinary moves.

"It basically moves to make sure that the census is fair and accurate, that it is removed from political influence and that the decisions made are made on science and not politics," Maloney told NPR.