Democrats Oppose Likely Pick to Head Census Bureau

A Republican reapportionment expert who heads a California think tank has emerged as President Bush’s leading candidate to run the federal Census Bureau and preside over the pivotal 1990 census, congressional sources said Monday.

Alan Heslop, director of the Rose Institute in Claremont, is in line to take over the bureau as it prepares to conduct the nationwide population count that will be used, among other things, to draw new boundaries for congressional and state legislative districts.

Democrats said they fear Heslop would skew the census to benefit Republicans in the forthcoming reapportionment. California Assembly Speaker Willie Brown, in Washington with a delegation of state legislators, called Heslop a “political hit man” and said that his appointment would “guarantee an under-count of blacks and Hispanics. . . . It would be an absolute disaster for Democrats.”

Heslop, who also was here Monday, confirmed in an interview that he was seeking the post of Census Bureau director, but he said he had received no indication that he was the leading candidate.

At the White House, an official said the appointment procedure is in “preliminary stages.” He said Heslop is being given “primary consideration” and that his name is “on a very short list” of candidates.

Heslop, a 51-year-old British immigrant, vehemently denied Brown’s charge that he would use the position to give Republicans a political edge.

“No one is more concerned than I am with ensuring an accurate census count,” Heslop said. “To engage in some sort of rebuttal of statements made by Willie Brown about a position that has not yet been offered to me is nonsense. Mr. Brown should reserve his comments until a candidate has been named for this position.”

For politicians, the issue of reapportionment is one of the most sensitive. Every 10 years, legislative and congressional district boundaries must be redrawn after the census.

In recent weeks, Republican members of California’s congressional delegation have been pushing the White House to appoint Heslop to run the census.

“Everybody tends to go to their expert, and he’s ours,” said Bob White, chief of staff to Sen. Pete Wilson (R-Calif.). “Partisanship aside, he’s the best demographics expert in the country.”

Rep. Jerry Lewis (R-Redlands) added: “We know that Alan would run a very professional operation. He’s a pro.”

The Oxford-educated Heslop, who once worked as a staff member for the California GOP, has long had an interest in demographic data. In 1971 and 1972, he worked on reapportionment as a Republican consultant to the California Assembly, Lewis recalled.

Heslop has been director of the Rose Institute since 1973. During that time, the institute has developed a vast store of population statistics, including precinct-by-precinct records of California voting for the last two decades. Although the figures are used most by Republicans, they are also available to Democrats, Heslop said.

The nonprofit Rose Institute is affiliated with Claremont McKenna College, where Heslop also teaches courses in government.

“The Rose Institute specializes in research of demographic and electoral trends,” he said.

He described himself as “a college professor who also, as a volunteer, has been active in California politics.”

Democrats, however, suggested that Heslop might under-count Latinos in the Los Angeles area by using census-takers who do not speak Spanish. “Heslop has always been a very political operator,” Brown said. “You would have to question whether he intends to count everybody.”