A provision in the House FY26 Commerce, Justice, Science (CJS) appropriations bill would prohibit the Census Bureau from making more than two contact attempts from any survey.

According to a letter from the ASA to Congressional leaders, dated 21^st October, the move would “undermine the nation’s statistical infrastructure, distort representation, and erode the prevision of the data on which communities, businesses, and governments depend”.

ASA executive director, Ron Wasserstein, writing in the letter, urged congressional leaders not to adopt the directive in the final appropriations bill.  

Referencing an analysis of the American Community Survey that found the Census Bureau reached about 20% of households after two mailings, Wasserstein wrote: “That level of participation is far too low to sustain accurate and reliable national statistics. Without additional follow-up, estimates lose precision and margins of error expand, especially for state-level and community-level estimates.”

According to the ASA’s letter, such a move risks smaller states, towns, rural counties and minority communities “vanishing from the statistical record”, while imprecise data could lead to “lost federal dollars, weakened infrastructure planning, and misdirected policies” for these geographical locations and communities.

The letter also said: “Nonresponse is not random. Hard-to-reach households such as rural families, renters, and low income households are disproportionately excluded when follow-up is limited. Experience has shown that collecting efforts must continue beyond two attempts to reach them.”

The concerns raised by the ASA follow earlier warnings from organisations including the Insights Association and the American Advertising Federation over the changes to the funding legislation, saying that provisions in section 605 of the CJS appropriations bill would have a “devastating impact” on the decennial census.