TALKING POINTS ON WHITE HOUSE PROPOSAL TO ABANDON REQUEST TO EXTEND REPORTING DEADLINES FOR CENSUS APPORTIONMENT & REDISTRICTING DATA

BACKGROUND: In the coming days, Congress will try to pass a new COVID-19 relief bill. The House of Representatives passed its version of the next COVID bill, called the HEROES Act (H.R. 6800), in May. That bill includes a provision to modify the statutory deadlines for reporting apportionment and redistricting data from the 2020 Census, as the administration requested in May. It also allocates an additional $400 million for the 2020 Census to address unanticipated costs as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, which stakeholders support. The administration made its request to push back the December 31, 2020 deadline for transmitting the state population totals used for congressional apportionment to the president, to April 30, 2021, in light of significant delays and disruptions to 2020 Census operations due to the public health crisis. The adjusted census schedule extends household counting operations to October 31, with operations to count people experiencing homelessness, transitory locations (such as RV parks), group facilities, and Remote Alaska also delayed to late summer and fall. So far, the national self-response rate is the lowest in history, which will require census takers to collect responses in person from more people than ever before.