Official: Obama taps Groves for census director

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama has chosen Robert M. Groves to be the next census director, turning to a professor who has clashed with Republicans over the use of statistical sampling to lead the high-stakes head count.

The White House will announce the selection of Groves later Thursday, a Commerce Department official told The Associated Press. The official demanded anonymity because the individual was not authorized to speak before the announcement.

Groves is a former Census Bureau associate director of statistical design, who served from 1990-92. He has spent decades researching ways to improve survey response rates. If confirmed by the Senate, he will take the helm less than a year before the decennial count, which has been beset by partisan bickering and will be used to apportion House seats and allocate billions in federal dollars.

House Republicans quickly expressed dismay Thursday over the selection of Groves, saying Obama's choice raised serious questions about an "ulterior political agenda."

"The fight to protect the accuracy and independence of the 2010 census has just begun," said Rep. Patrick McHenry of North Carolina, the top Republican on a House subcommittee overseeing the census. "President Obama has made clear that he intends to employ the political manipulation of census data for partisan gain."

When he was the bureau's associate director, Groves recommended that the 1990 census be statistically adjusted to make up for an undercount of roughly 5 million people, many of them minorities in dense urban areas who tend to vote for Democrats.

But in a fierce political dispute that prompted White House staff to call advisers to the bureau and express opposition, the Census Bureau was overruled by Republican Commerce Secretary Robert Mosbacher, who called the proposed statistical adjustment "political tampering."

The Supreme Court later ruled in 1999 that the use of statistical sampling cannot be used to apportion House seats, but indicated that adjustments could be made to the population count when redrawing congressional boundaries.

Current Commerce Secretary Gary Locke has said there are no current plans to use sampling for redistricting, while indicating that sampling could be used to measure census accuracy or collect a wider range of demographic data.