Federal judge expedites Newburgh’s Census suit

Lana Bellamy
lBellamy@th-record.com
U.S. Census Bureau workers Eric Marion, left, and Mario Garcia arrange 2020 Census pamphlets at a booth near the entrance to the Newburgh Free Library in October. About 30 people applied for jobs to help with the 2020 count during a recruitment event.

CITY OF NEWBURGH – A federal judge is expediting a lawsuit brought against the U.S. Census Bureau by the City of Newburgh and the New York City-based Center for Popular Democracy Action.

U.S. District Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein on Thursday ordered the bureau and Department of Commerce to quickly produce its administrative record, which could be used to explain decisions made about 2020 Census operations.

This was ordered despite arguments that assembling the record would be “highly burdensome” and detract time and energy from 2020 Census work.

Newburgh’s City Council unanimously voted to join the lawsuit on Oct. 15 after Yale Law School students and staff visited an earlier work session.

About 57 percent of Newburgh city residents responded to the mailed questionnaires in 2010, according to the Hard-To-Count map developed by City University of New York.

The risk of undercounting Newburgh, and losing federal funding opportunities because of it, is one of the reasons the city joined the lawsuit.

The suit, filed in the Southern District of New York, claims final operational plans for the 2020 Census include five “arbitrary and capricious agency decisions” that could jeopardize the count for people of color, people with lower incomes and those living in communities considered hard-to-count.

Those decisions include drastically reducing the number of census field offices; eliminating local Questionnaire Assistance Centers; and having more than $1 billion in unspent appropriated funds for the 2020 fiscal year that could be used to improve census procedures.

Hellerstein ordered Census Bureau representatives to identify who made the decisions in question by Jan. 17. Oral arguments will take place March 18.

From March 12 to March 20, households should receive mail from the Census Bureau with information about how to respond to the census online, by phone or by post.

Every household should receive an invitation to participate in the count by Census Day on April 1.

Job fairs to recruit local counters will be held Jan. 23 and 25 at the Newburgh Free Library, located at 124 Grand St.

More information about census job fairs and the Newburgh Complete Count Committee, which will have several public meetings in late-January through March, can be found at https://bit.ly/2FMT0ln

lbellamy@th-record.com