A growing number of state lawmakers are urging President Trump to appoint a Census director to ensure an “accurate” 2030 Census, even as the White House remains mum on the subject.
Last week, 142 state Republican officials signed an open letter organized by the State Freedom Caucus Network asking the president to nominate a full-time director to lead the U.S. Census Bureau to lay the groundwork for a successful 2030 Census. The agency — which is responsible for conducting a decennial census and effectively decides how many U.S. House seats each state is awarded — has operated without a Senate-confirmed leader since early 2025.
Now totaling 170 state lawmakers as of publication, the coalition espoused concern that the Census Bureau “has drifted from its constitutional mission.” The GOP officials specifically noted the agency’s “continued reliance on differential privacy, statistical adjustments, and other methodologies,” which they argued “corrupt reported data to distort an actual enumeration of our citizenry” and “has eroded public trust.”
As The Federalist reported, the Census Bureau released a post-2020 Census analysis in 2022 revealing that it undercounted the population of mostly Republican states (five of six) and overcounted the population of mostly Democrat states (six of eight). In other words, mostly Democrat states were afforded more congressional seats than they should’ve gotten after the 2020 Census, while mostly Republican states were wrongly deprived of seats.
Another issue raised by state lawmakers in their letter to Trump is the “removal of the citizenship question from the household census form,” which they noted has “empowered the non-citizen population count to deform congressional apportionment and state and federal redistricting.” A January 2026 forecast by the American Redistricting Project estimated that an accurate 2030 apportionment without noncitizens would lead to blue states like California and New York losing House seats and red states like Florida and Tennessee gaining seats.
The president’s efforts to include the citizenship question on the 2020 Census met legal headwinds during his first administration. The battle ultimately made its way to the U.S. Supreme Court, which effectively sided against the government based on a procedural issue.
[READ: Counting Noncitizens In The Census Undermines American Democracy]
Despite the growing calls to appoint a full-time Census director, it remains unclear when or if Trump will do so. The White House did not respond to The Federalist’s request for comment on whether the president is planning to send a nomination to the Senate by the end of the year, and if so, when such a nomination would be publicly announced.
“Mr. President, your Administration has rightly and consistently emphasized election integrity as a fundamental part of regaining America’s trust in our government,” the state lawmakers wrote. “Key decisions are being made at the Census Bureau now that will affect America’s path forward. Nominating a qualified Census Bureau Director at this crucial time is an integral part of ensuring that the 2030 Census accurately fulfills its constitutional purpose.”
The Census Bureau is currently being spearheaded by Acting Director George Cook, who serves as the deputy under secretary in the Office of the Under Secretary for Economic Affairs.
