Census deadline extension means La. has more time to be counted

By Jarvis DeBerry
Contributing Writer

(Special from lailluminator.com) – Louisiana residents and residents throughout the country will have at least until Monday to respond to the 2020 Census — and maybe longer. A federal judge in Northern California ruled last week that the U.S. Census Bureau must continue its counting operation through the end of October, but U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross — who oversees the bureau — has set a Monday, Oct. 5 “target date” to wrap up the count.

However long it lasts, that extended deadline gives Louisiana — which currently has the second worst response rate in the nation — more time to have its residents counted. Federal funding and the size of a state’s congressional delegation are calculated using a state’s official population numbers.

The Oct. 31 counting deadline that U.S. District Judge Lucy H. Koh set in a Sept. 24 ruling requires the U.S. Census Bureau to use the end date that it had previously announced. Oct. 31, but at the beginning of August, the Trump administration announced that it would be ending the counting a month earlier than planned. Koh called that change, which she said wasn’t explained by Secretary Ross or the bureau, “arbitrary and capricious.”

As of last Tuesday, 27 states and Puerto Rico had a total census response rate of 99 percent or higher. Five states plus Puerto Rico are listed by the bureau as having total response rates of 99.9 percent.

Louisiana is at the other end of the list. Its total response rate is 94.9 percent, putting it behind every other state except Alabama (93.7 percent).

The Power Coalition for Equity and Justice is one of the organizations that has been working hard in Louisiana to encourage residents to make sure they’re counted. The organization has previously noted that Louisiana loses more $2,200 in funding for every resident who goes uncounted. Ashley Shelton, executive director of the coalition, said that Louisianans need to be sure to take advantage of the extra time they’re being given.

“Given that Louisiana is near the bottom of the country in Census response rate, the extension of the Census deadline is particularly good news for our state,” Shelton said in a statement Tuesday. “But it doesn’t mean anything if we don’t act. Right now, our hardest to count communities–lower income communities, both urban and rural, and especially communities of color–are being left behind.

“These are also the communities that benefit the most from a complete count. We need to redouble our efforts to get every single one of our family members, friends, and neighbors to fill out their 2020 Census as soon as possible. Without a complete count, those same communities will miss out on the resources they need to recover from the pandemic and other natural disasters, as well as the political representation they’ll need to make progress over the next decade.”

The 2020 Census is the first one in the nation’s history where residents have been given three ways to self respond, Marilyn Stephens, assistant regional census manager in the U.S. Census Bureau’s Atlanta office, said in a Sept. 4 interview with the Illuminator. Responding to the census by mail has long been the standard, but this is the first time the census has publicized the public’s ability to respond online and the first time it has provided a way for people to respond on the phone, she said.

“It’s also the first census where we’re supporting 12 non-English languages online and by phone,” she said. An online questionnaire can be found at 2020Census.gov.

The Louisiana Illuminator is an independent, nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization driven by its mission to cast light on how decisions are made in Baton Rouge and how they affect the lives of everyday Louisianans, particularly those who are poor or otherwise marginalized.

This article originally published in the October 5, 2020 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.