Word leaked out today that Obama has chosen Robert Groves to be the new census director, setting off the next political skirmish over how the 2010 census should be conducted. Groves is currently a professor of statistics at the University of Michigan, and Mark Blumenthal describes him as “arguably the leading authority on the subject of non-response in surveys.” (Blumenthal’s take on the selection, along with an interview he conducted with Groves on the subject of non-response, is here.)
This is a big deal, a very big deal. As you’ll recall, at the heart of the census dispute is the question of whether the government uses a strict headcount to arrive at population totals or if it supplements those numbers with sampling to account for those individuals who fall between the cracks. (The 1990 census missed some 8 million people–mostly immigrants and urban minorities–while at the same time double-counting about 4 million white Americans.)
It would be hard to find someone more predisposed to filling in the gaps–or more knowledgable about the techniques for doing so–than Groves. That’s one reason House Republicans wasted no time bemoaning his selection, calling the move “incredibly troubling” and charging that it “contradicts the Administration’s assurances that the census process would not be used to advance an ulterior political agenda.”