Gregg Ends Bid for Commerce Job

In recent days, Republicans have been upset by suspicions that the Obama administration sought to assert more direct control over the census, a prospect they called troubling given that the president’s chief of staff, Mr. Emanuel, is a former Democratic congressman who helped his party win a majority in the House.

“We respectfully request that you reconsider and reverse your administration’s plans to transfer control of the Census Bureau and the 2010 census to the White House staff,” the House Republican leader, John A. Boehner of Ohio, wrote Thursday in a letter to the president.

The census has huge implications social and political. It is used to distribute federal money to states and cities based on population, and to redraw Congressional districts — determining how many seats in the House that growing states will pick up at the expense of states with relatively stagnant populations.