The Census Bureau is supposed to be non-political. All that this extremely important and powerful government agency is supposed to do is gather data and put that information into a usable form so that policymakers can better run the country.
So what the heck was going on with Census in Chicago, President Obama's home town?
I'd like to tell you the story of Stanley Moore, who has worked at the Census Bureau for more than 45 years, according to a biography posted online. And for many decades, this 80-something-year-old was the regional director for Census in Chicago, a job that won him a lot of friends in the Democratic Party and at least a passing acquaintance with high-ups in the Obama Administration.
Then suddenly — around this time last year — Moore was removed from his job. There was no announcement by Census and none of the Chicago media reported this event, even though Moore — if only because of his age — was a bit of local celebrity.
It may have been a coincidence, but Moore was removed just weeks after I began an investigation into data falsification at Census that, at the time, focused only on the Philadelphia region. That investigation has since expanded.
Moore's "removal" didn't last long.
After four Democratic Congressmen from the Chicago area came to the rescue, Moore was given what seems to be a bigger and better job.
The Census Bureau won't discuss the reason Moore was replaced. A spokesman, Michael Cook, would only confirm that "Stanley D. Moore became senior adviser to the associate director for field operations on Jan. 26, 2014. He is still working at the Census Bureau and helping to develop the plan for the 2020 Census Partnership program."
But Moore's tale raises loads of questions.
Among them, the obvious: Was it just a coincidence that Census replaced Chicago's regional director soon after I began questioning the way the Census Bureau gathers its statistics?
Moore was as entrenched as anyone. Yet his job was in jeopardy at least by Dec. 12 — the day Illinois congressmen Bobby Rush, Danny Davis, Robin Kelly and Daniel Lipinski — sent letters to the Census trying to reinstate Moore.
And why were these Democratic representatives so interested in this guy? What could Moore possibly have been doing that made him so important to them?
My first column in a year-long probe of the Census was published on Nov. 19, 2013. In it I explained that Julius Buckmon, a data-collector from the Philadelphia region, was caught fabricating surveys and that he claimed higher-ups in his region had urged him to do so.
Another source from Philadelphia in that story said particular attention was paid to the unemployment data right before the presidential election in 2012.
The headline of that column was "Election jobs report was faked: insider." The Chicago operation of Census was never mentioned in that column. It was all about Philadelphia.
But the antics of unnamed Chicago politicians had been brought up by others — including former General Electric Chairman Jack Welch — when an economic report in October 2012, which was just a month before President Obama was to be re-elected, suddenly showed a surprisingly large drop in the jobless rate.
I tried to reach Moore through Census, but nobody got back to me.
In April I wrote a column about my requests for e-mails between Moore and Fernando Armstrong, the head of the Philadelphia region, who — I was told — was mentored by Moore.
And Census spokesman Cook said I'd have to file a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to find out anything about Moore's removal — an avenue that in the past has proven particularly unrewarding despite the fact that one of the Obama Administration's first vows was transparency in government operations.
Census spokesman Cook threatened to complain to the editor of The Post if I claimed that Census wasn't abiding by FOIA laws and if I didn't point out that Census has provided me with 1,055 pages of documents in response to 11 of my FOIA requests to Census.
Of course, all but 60 were in response to one request and it, like the other 10 requests, consists almost entirely of blacked-out pages and irrelevant chitchat.
I don't take attempts at intimidation lightly, so I'm mentioning it now.
I'd like to know if Moore and Armstrong ever talked about things like that.
I will discuss this more on Thursday.
The Commerce Department's inspector general's office will be questioning workers in the New York Census Bureau Office Tuesday about allegations that economic data was falsified.
But don't worry, the workers have already been coached to say that anything they reveal was "their opinion."
If the IG's office really wants to find out what's going on it will talk to everyone and find out if they are afraid to talk.
And remind the workers that whistleblowers are protected under federal law.
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