Pennsylvania won't give driver's license records to Census

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Pennsylvania won't give driver's license records to Census

Associated Press | Thursday, October 24, 2019 3:58 p.m.

An envelope containing a 2018 census letter mailed to a U.S. resident as part of the nation’s only test run of the 2020 Census. Legal wrangling has surrounded the U.S. census count for decades, culminating in this year’s fight over adding a citizenship question.

HARRISBURG — Pennsylvania’s transportation secretary is telling the U.S. Census Bureau that her agency won’t provide driver’s license records as part of a Trump administration effort to gather citizenship information.

Secretary Leslie Richards wrote Thursday to a Census Bureau official, saying her department won’t participate in the project.

More than a dozen other states have already declined to participate, according to an Associated Press survey.

The Census Bureau began asking for five years’ worth of driver’s license records in August, promising the information will be kept confidential.

That effort began after the U.S. Supreme Court rejected a plan to add a citizenship question to next year’s census.

The effort has alarmed civil rights groups that see it as part of a move by the Trump administration to reduce the political power of minorities.

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