Judd Gregg OUT As Commerce Nominee
Judd Gregg has dropped out as a candidate for Commerce Secretary because of disputes with President Obama over how to handle the 2010 Census. The issue has to do with how to count people with Obama wanting to use a modeling technique that would try to account for people who are missed in the count.
This has long been controversial because it does basically involve guessing about the numbers of people and most of the models tend to increase the counts in largely Democratic areas like big cities at the expense of more Republican oriented rural regions. Since the Census determines House membership it is obviously a touchy subject.
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The issue was the White House insisting it will run the census, when the Constitution explicitly defines that as the responsibility og the Commerce Department.
Violating the Constitution? I thought only Bush did THAT!
I don't know what is meant by, “the White House insisting it will run the census” because it is the Commerce Dept. which runs it and I don't think Obama has plans to create his own White House Commerce Dept. like Cheney created his own intelligence unit…
At any rate, if I were a Republican I would welcome the chance to have someone “inside”. This excuse over the 2010 census running sounds false….
I also find it interesting that Gregg has been consulting with the GOP leadership over the past few days over this…..
I can't wait to see how this pans out. Not just Gregg withdrawing his name but the tone of the GOP Senators on future legislation… and the 2010 census.
The Obama Administration announced that it will have the director of the Census Bureau report to the White House instead of the Director of the Commerce Department.
Here's the argument that it's unconstitutional for the president to take over the Census from the Secretary of Commerce. It goes like this: Article I, Section 2 of the Constitution provides for an “actual enumeration” and a statute passed by Congress provides that the duties under this clause are to be performed by the Secretary of Commerce. Article I is about the Legislative, not the Executive, branch. The President can't substitute a sampling for the enumeration required to be done by the Secretary, nor take away from the Secretary the direct control of the census.
AR, I don't know the full issues involved nor the full story, but I agree with you- I don't think the director of the Census Bureau should report to the WH.