Take control of and review changes to race and ethnicity questions

Attempted

Printed page 680 21. Department of Commerce

“Review forthcoming changes to race and ethnicity questions. The current Administration has announced its intent to change data collection methods regarding race and ethnicity by combining the two questions on the decennial questionnaire and increasing the number of available options. A new conservative Administration should take control of this process and thoroughly review any changes.”

What has happened

Sep 10, 2026 Attempted
The administration took the decision into its own rulemaking and proposed to remove the question. Proposed 15 CFR 70.2(a) reads: "No question about race, ethnicity, or sexual orientation shall appear on the short form decennial census questionnaire or any questionnaire used for the enumeration of the population." The Bureau says it is "re-evaluating the proper role of these demographic questions", citing response burden, disclosure risk and the "(potentially) sensitive nature" of the questions (RIN 0607-AA75, docket USBC-2026-0628, 91 FR 57524, published with a companion proposal on residence criteria). That is this Quote's object, the race and ethnicity questions on the decennial questionnaire, and it is the administration taking control of what happens to them. It overshoots the Quote's method. The Quote asked that the forthcoming changes, the combined question and the added categories, be "thoroughly review[ed]". The proposal never mentions Statistical Policy Directive No. 15, OMB's standard or the combined question. It forecloses them on the enumeration form by removing race and ethnicity altogether. It leaves them in place everywhere else: proposed 70.4 keeps the Bureau free to ask demographic questions on the American Community Survey and other surveys. It is a proposal, with comments due 2026-10-13, and no earlier directive on census content exists, so `attempted`.
- Census Bureau proposed rule: Decennial Census of the Population of Americans; Proposed Residence Criteria and Proposed Regulations for Demographic Questions (91 FR 57524)
  Primary Executive branch Sep 10, 2026
Aug 31, 2026 Not started
Nothing found. The 2024 revision of OMB Statistical Policy Directive No. 15 — which combines the race and ethnicity questions and adds a Middle Eastern or North African category, and is what the Quote means by 'forthcoming changes' — stands unreviewed and unamended. Census's in-window information collections still cite SPD 15 as the standard; no notice reopens it, and the 2026 Operational Test notice, read in full, says nothing about race or ethnicity. The 2030 Census Advisory Committee that was to advise on the question set was terminated effective 2025-02-28.
- Census Bureau OMB submission: 2026 Operational Test in Support of the 2030 Census
  Primary Executive branch Feb 3, 2026
- Commerce Office of the Secretary: Notice of Termination of 14 Discretionary Federal Advisory Committees
  Primary Executive branch Jun 10, 2025

Research log

What was searched, and what didn’t count as evidence

Research notes

Cluster negative search CENSUS-1 (chapter log): a jq pass over all 83 in-window Federal Register records whose agency is the Census Bureau — every information-collection notice, every deregulatory rule and every 2030 Census operational notice — plus the DOC/CENSUS slice of reginfo.gov’s Unified Agenda (seven RINs: boundary-date, seal, population-estimate-challenge, decennial-release, personal-data and fee housekeeping), plus grep -i census over nominations.ndjson (0 records) and over presidential-actions.ndjson (0). Also Federal Register full text since 2025-01-20 for "Statistical Policy Directive No. 15" (17 in-window documents, all of them other agencies’ collections citing the standard, two of them Census’s own — the Current Population Survey basic demographics clearance of 2025-11-03 and the ACS clearance of 2025-12-19, both applying it rather than revisiting it); and a grep of the operative text of the 2026 Operational Test notice at https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2026-02-03/html/2026-02206.htm for race, ethnic, citizenship and remov (no substantive hits).

Note the contrast with #1889 (major, attempted), which found a citizenship question in the 2026 field-test questionnaire: the same test notice is silent on race and ethnicity, so the two asks come out at different rungs on the same document.

The 2026-09-10 proposed rule’s operative text — closed in review 2026-09-11. The triage leveled on the abstract, having no network, and left three questions. The review read the full text on federalregister.gov. (1) Both questions go. Proposed §70.2(a) bars any question “about race, ethnicity, or sexual orientation” from the short form and from any enumeration questionnaire, so the Hispanic-origin question goes along with the race question. Proposed §70.2(b) permits only biological sex, date of birth and household relationship, and §70.2(c) makes every other demographic question voluntary. (2) SPD 15 is not addressed. A full-text search for Statistical Policy, SPD, Middle Eastern, Hispanic and combined returns nothing. The proposal does not review the 2024 revision. It takes the question it would apply to off the enumeration form. (3) OMB appears only as the reviewer of a significant regulatory action under E.O. 12866, not as the owner of the standard. The rung stays attempted, and the event note now says what the text does, including the overshoot. Removal is not the thorough review the Quote asked for. It is still the administration taking control of the Quote’s object, which is the limb that levels. Proposed §70.4 leaves the ACS and every other survey free to ask about race and ethnicity, so SPD 15’s 2024 categories stand everywhere except the enumeration. The same document is on #1891 (the question set as a whole) and on #1889 (citizenship), each on its own Quote.

Action: other
Object: decennial census race and ethnicity questions
ID: 1890