Rep. Jared Huffman urges census participation as judge blocks Trump administration’s end to count

North Coast Rep. Jared Huffman is calling on his constituents to participate in the census in a race against time as the Trump administration sought to end the once-in-a-decade population count next week ? a plan that was staved off until at least late October by a federal judge’s ruling late Thursday.

“We’ve got a lot of work to do,” the San Rafael Democrat said in a Facebook Live session, noting the census completion rate in his six-county district is just 66%.

“The costs of not getting to 100% are really astronomical,” he said.

As examples, he said, a 1% undercount would cost the district’s schools nearly $183,000 in federal funding and a loss of more than $165,000 for low-income worker assistance.

The U.S. Census Bureau determined that 16 million people were not counted in the 2010 census and experts fear the undercount could be larger this year, according to a report by the House Committee on Oversight and Reform.

Huffman’s 2nd Congressional District stretches along the coast from the Golden Gate to the Oregon border. If minorities in the district were undercounted by the same percentage as they were nationally in 2010, the new census would miss more then 330 African Americans, 1,750 Hispanics, 1,240 American Indians and Native Alaskans and 1,650 young children, the report said.

Huffman expressed concern especially over the census completion rate in his district’s less affluent counties that “most need federal resources” ? Mendocino at 55%, Del Norte 61% and Humboldt 62%. Those were well below the rates in Sonoma at 70% and Marin at 76%.

California’s completion rate is 69%, tied for 18th place nationwide, and the national rate is 66%, with most of the lower rates in a band of Southern states from New Mexico to North Carolina, according to the census website.

Time is crucial, Huffman said, with the Trump administration pushing to end the population count next week, a month sooner than the previously announced date of Oct. 31.

A federal judge in San Jose late Thursday block the Trump administration from ending the census on Wednesday, giving the count another month to capture more of the uncounted households.

The administration contends the earlier shutdown is needed to meet the legal deadline of Dec. 31 for producing the final population figures, but others calling for more time, including Census Bureau officials, say it would produce an incomplete count.

Cynthia Boaz, a Sonoma State University political science professor, said the census may show that minority and underrepresented populations have grown in the past decade.

“That would cause a reallocation of federal funds in a way that (President) Trump has demonstrated he does not support,” she said in an email.

Huffman said the administration “wants to be able to stack and rig the resources in ways that advantage them politically.”

People can respond to the census online at 2020census.gov, by phone at 844-330-2020 or by mail using a census form. Noncitizens can participate.

“Nothing in the process asks about citizenship,” Huffman said.

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