Bush considering GOP official for top Census Bureau post

President Bush's transition team is considering Republican National Committee Redistricting Director Tom Hofeller as a replacement for outgoing Census Bureau Director Kenneth Prewitt, sources said late last week.

The appointment of Hofeller, a longtime Republican redistricting expert who opposes census sampling, could set the stage for a fight with Democrats, who strongly advocate sampling for congressional redistricting as a more accurate way to count often undercounted minority and urban groups. Republicans say sampling is unconstitutional and fear the statistical methods could be skewed to partisan advantage.

Hofeller did not disavow interest in the post, but emphasized he had no plans to give up the GOP redistricting effort. "My interest is in fulfilling my commitment to the RNC," Hofeller said.

Whoever heads the bureau, Democrats are gearing up for a fight over redistricting numbers.

The Supreme Court ruled sampling could not be used for the reapportionment of House seats among the states, but did not prevent the Clinton administration from moving forward with sampling for redistricting.

The bureau must release detailed redistricting data to the states by April 1, and Democrats are pressing the new GOP administration to release both the sampling and unadjusted sets of numbers.

Democratic members of the Census Monitoring Board later this week plan to release several new reports on the census undercount, including studies on infant children, poverty and urban planning.

At his confirmation hearing two weeks ago, Commerce Secretary Evans, who would oversee the bureau, said he did not know enough about sampling to take a position on the matter.