About Time
Finally, after months of Republican complaining, Robert Groves has been confirmed to take up his post as Director of the Census Bureau.
While it’s hardly novel for Republicans to be holding up an Obama nominee for essentially frivolous reasons, the Groves case was particularly illustrative because of how bogus the objections were and how overwhelmingly qualified Groves is.
The GOP’s main objection was that when Groves was at the census bureau in the 1990s, he argued that the Census should use statistical sampling techniques to compensate for the known undercount every ten years, which (or what Rep. Patrick McHenry calls “manipulating census results) just so happens to be concentrated in urban, poor and minority communities who, once again, just so happen to vote for Democrats more.
But even though the Supreme Court has ruled that sampling methods couldn’t be allowed for apportioning of House seats and Groves pledged not to use sampling, Republicans were still grumpy and delayed his confirmation out of pique.
Senate and House Republicans also decided to make a big deal out of ACORN being one of thousands of partner organizations that help out with the census, with Michele Bachmann going so far as to say that she would illegally not fill out the entire form, because she was scared of ACORN knowing her personal information. Even her fellow Republicans thought this was a bit too crazy.
Of course, there was no evidence of wrong doing, or even a logical argument for how ACORN recruiting workers would lead to improper results, but that obviously didn’t matter for Senators — specifically David Shelby and David Vitter, who both put holds on the nomination — looking to grandstand.
But aside from these marginal issues that play with the base, the important point is that Groves was absurdly qualified to be Director of the Bureau. He was associate director from 1990 and 1992 and is also perhaps the leading academic in the field of survey research. More specifically, he’s an expert on how to decrease survey non-response, which seems like a relevant consideration for someone running the Census.
It doesn’t speak well of the seriousness or responsibility with which some Republican congressmen and senators approach their job that they let Groves’s nomination be delayed this long.
*Full disclosure: Groves’ son is a good friend of mine.
