The Supreme Courts decision to allow the Trump administration to end the 2020 census was another case of whiplash for the census, which has faced stops from the pandemic, natural disasters and court rulings. “The Trump administration is acting out of fear. By sticking to the Dec. 31 deadline, the Trump administration would end up controlling the numbers used for the apportionment, no matter who wins next month’s presidential election. The Census Bureau pushed an end-of-July deadline for concluding the count to the end of October because of the virus. Whether that Dec. 31 deadline holds is still being decided in the courts.

(AP Photo/LM Otero)ORLANDO, Fla. The U.S. Census Bureau is cutting its schedule for data collection for the 2020 census a month short as legislation that would have extended the national head count's deadlines stalls in the U.S. Senate. But Census Bureau director Steven Dillingham said that the agency aimed to have the same level of responses as past censuses. The bureau also asked Congress in April to extend the deadline for turning in apportionment data used for drawing congressional districts from Dec. 31, 2020, to April 30, 2021. Top Census Bureau officials have said it would be impossible to meet the end-of-the-year deadline, and that the bureau expected bipartisan support for the request. The chambers inaction coincides with a memorandum Trump issued last month to try to exclude people living in the U.S. illegally from being part of the process for redrawing congressional districts.