Census Bureau Adds Top-Level Political Posts, Raising Fears for 2020 Count

WASHINGTON — The Census Bureau said on Tuesday that it had created two new top-level positions and filled them with political appointees from outside the agency, an unprecedented move that revived concerns the national population count has turned increasingly partisan.

The census, which is constitutionally mandated to count every person in the country every decade, has traditionally been carried out in a rigidly nonpartisan fashion.

But critics fear that the appointments are the latest sign that the census, which is used to apportion federal dollars and political representation, has become increasingly politicized — and a way for Republicans to bend census results to advance their electoral interests.

Tuesday’s announcement comes almost one year after the Supreme Court ruled that the administration could not ask census respondents whether they were American citizens. This ended a bitter legal battle over charges that Republicans were trying to deter immigrants, ethnic minorities and others who tend to vote Democratic from responding to the survey.