The Senate Confirms the Country’s First Latino Census Bureau Director
The Senate has confirmed Robert Santos, President Biden’s nominee to head the U.S. Census Bureau, for a historic political appointment.
After a bipartisan 58-35 vote on Thursday, Santos, one of the country’s leading statisticians, is on track to be sworn in as the first Latino to lead the federal government’s largest statistical agency, which carries out key national surveys and the once-a-decade head count used to distribute political representation and federal funding around the United States.
While Santos is set to become the first person of color to serve as a permanent, Senate-confirmed Census Bureau director, he is the second-ever person of color to oversee the constitutionally mandated count. More than two decades ago, James F. Holmes, a survey statistician turned regional director for the bureau who is African American, temporarily led the bureau in 1998 as its acting director, breaking with more than two centuries of white people heading the U.S. census.
