Warner calls on Trump to keep Census on schedule

U.S. Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA) today joined Sen. Brian Schatz (D-HI) and 27 other senators in calling for Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross to meet the administration’s previously set deadline of July 1 to begin printing materials for the 2020 Census and move forward without adding a politically motivated question about citizenship.

Their call comes a day after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the Trump administration’s rationale for adding the question “appears to have been contrived.” President Trump also announced on Twitter yesterday that he had asked his lawyers to delay the Census.

“By continuing to pursue the citizenship question, you will further delay and jeopardize the Census Bureau’s ability to conduct a full, fair, and accurate decennial census as required by the U.S. Constitution and the Census Act,” the senators wrote in a letter to Secretary Ross. “We urge you to stop all efforts to add a citizenship question and allow the Census Bureau to proceed with preparation for a 2020 census without a citizenship question on the questionnaire.”

The full text of the letter is available here.