Census extension ordered for an additional month by the judge in 2020
In a significant ruling made in California, U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh has ordered the 2020 census to continue through the end of October. This decision extends the suspension of the initial end-of-September deadline and the end-of-the-year deadline for the Census Bureau.
The ruling, made late Thursday, follows arguments from attorneys for the Census Bureau and civil rights groups and local governments. The once-a-decade head count of every U.S. resident was initially scheduled to finish at the end of September.
Judge Koh's preliminary injunction suspends the end-of-the-year deadline, in addition to the initial end-of-October deadline. The temporary restraining order previously issued by Judge Koh prohibited the Census Bureau from winding down field operations until a ruling in the lawsuit was made.
The lawsuit was filed by civil rights groups and local governments against the Census Bureau. The attorneys for these groups argued that a shortened schedule would undercount residents in minority and hard-to-count communities, potentially leading to inaccuracies in the distribution of federal funding and political representation.
Government attorneys, however, argued that the census must finish by the end of September to meet a Dec. 31 deadline for turning over numbers used for deciding how many congressional seats each state gets. The census is also used to determine how $1.5 trillion in federal spending is distributed each year.
The attorneys for the Census Bureau and the Department of Commerce, which oversees the agency, have stated they will likely appeal the ruling. The appeals process for this ruling is not specified in the current article.
As a result of this decision, the current status of the census operations is that they are still ongoing, with field operations not allowed to be wound down. The search results do not provide information on the current director of the Census Bureau ordered by Judge Lucy Koh to continue the full count of all US residents until the end of October.
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