GOP blocks Census head confirmation

From the Wall Street Journal:

WASHINGTON -- Senate Republicans are blocking a vote on the nomination of Robert Groves to be the Census Bureau's director, leaving the agency without a leader less than a year before the 2010 nationwide head count.

Dr. Groves, President Barack Obama's pick to lead the bureau, was approved easily by the Senate homeland-security committee in May, but Republicans blocked a confirmation vote last week. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky said Republicans weren't yet in agreement on the nominee.

It is unclear why Republicans are blocking the vote. A McConnell spokeswoman, Jennifer Morris, said she had no information on the delay.

Dr. Groves, director of the University of Michigan's Survey Research Center and a former Census Bureau official, has raised concerns among mainly Republican lawmakers because he is an expert in sampling, the use of statistical adjustments to compensate for undercounted populations. Dr. Groves has said he won't use the practice for the 2010 count.

"Every day that goes by that the Census Bureau does not have a director that is responsible for steering the ship, the risk to the Census in terms of its operational success grows great," said Terri Ann Lowenthal, who headed the Obama transition team's effort on the Census.

Preparations are well under way for the 2010 count. In recent decades, the count has been plagued by data-collection problems in low-income urban areas and remote rural areas. Engaging undocumented immigrants, who are hesitant to provide personal information, has always been difficult.

The bureau is in need of a figure to publicly emphasize the importance of the decennial count, Ms. Lowenthal said, and without a director, this has been all but impossible