Politics

By Jody Godoy

(Reuters) -Two Democrats on the U.S. Federal Trade Commission who were fired by President Donald Trump in March will urge a federal judge in Washington to declare the move illegal on Tuesday, in the latest showdown over the limits of presidential power.

Alvaro Bedoya and Rebecca Kelly Slaughter seek an order declaring their terminations unlawful and allowing them to resume their work at the agency, which enforces consumer protection and antitrust law.

The case is one of several testing a 90-year-old Supreme Court precedent that shields independent agencies from direct White House control. A ruling overturning it could reverberate far and wide, shaking the independence of agencies that regulate road safety, stock markets, telecommunications and monetary policy.

Bedoya and Slaughter say their terminations on March 18 openly defied a law allowing the president to fire FTC commissioners only for good cause, such as neglecting their duties.

The Supreme Court upheld that law in the 1935 case Humphrey’s Executor v. U.S., after the last time a U.S. president attempted to fire an FTC commissioner over a policy disagreement.

Congress has the power to create agencies that serve legislative or judicial functions, and allowing the president to control those agencies violates the separation of powers, the Supreme Court ruled.

The Trump administration has argued Humphrey’s Executor does not apply to the current FTC, which gained the authority to sue in federal court to block mergers and seek financial penalties after the case was decided.

As it now exists, the FTC should be considered part of the executive branch controlled by the president, not Congress, the administration has said.

Multiple courts have considered that argument and rejected it, saying the Supreme Court settled the matter, Slaughter and Bedoya said.

The FTC, currently led by three Republicans, is structured so that no more than three of its five commissioners come from the same party.

The case is playing out at the same time as similar challenges by members of the Merit Systems Protection Board and National Labor Relations Board who were fired by Trump.

The Supreme Court could rule at any time on whether the Trump administration must reinstate the NLRB and MSPB members, while this case is being reviewed.

(Reporting by Jody Godoy; Editing by Aurora Ellis)

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This is a photo collection curated by AP photo editors.

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By Tim Reid

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Tens of thousands of U.S. government workers have chosen to resign rather than endure what many view as a torturous wait for the Trump administration to carry out its threats to fire them, say unions, governance experts and the employees themselves.

President Donald Trump signed an executive order on taking office to dramatically slash the size and cost of government. Four months later, mass layoffs at the largest agencies have yet to materialize and courts have slowed the process.

Instead, most of the roughly 260,000 civil servants who have left or will leave by the end of September have taken buyouts or other incentives to quit. Some told Reuters they could no longer live with the daily stress of waiting to be fired after multiple warnings from Trump administration officials that they could lose their jobs in the next wave of layoffs.

As a result, Trump and tech billionaire Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency have managed to cut nearly 12% of the 2.3 million-strong federal civilian workforce largely through threats of firings, buyouts and early retirement offers, a Reuters review of agency departures found.

The White House did not respond to a request for comment for this story. Trump and Musk say the federal bureaucracy is bloated, inefficient and beset with waste and fraud.

The White House has yet to provide an official tally of the number of people leaving the federal workforce. It said 75,000 took the first of two buyout offers but has not said how many took a second buyout offer last month. Under the scheme, civil servants will receive full pay and benefits through September 30, with most not having to work during that period.

Deep cuts are earmarked for several agencies, including over 80,000 jobs at the Department of Veterans Affairs, and 10,000 at the Department of Health and Human Services.

Since January, many government workers have spoken of living in fear of being fired. Many agencies have sent regular emails to staff that couple incentives to quit with warnings that those who stay face the possibility of being laid off.

They have also endured cramped offices after Trump ordered all remote workers to return to work and dysfunction inside their agencies caused by a brain drain of experienced workers.

Don Moynihan, a professor at the Ford School of Public Policy at the University of Michigan, said a series of moves by DOGE and Trump have worn down the early defiance of many civil servants and led them to leave the workforce, a strategy that avoids the legal pitfalls of firing them.

They include the first buyout offer, which told workers they needed to leave their “lower productivity” jobs; a demand by Musk for workers to summarize five things they had achieved at work in the previous week, and workers being asked to do jobs they were not trained for.

“It’s inappropriate to think of these as voluntary resignations. Many of these employees feel that they were forced out,” Moynihan said.

Charlotte Reynolds, 58, took an early retirement offer and left her job as a senior tax analyst at the tax-collecting Internal Revenue Service on April 30.

Reynolds chose not to take the first buyout offer in January, deciding to tough things out. By April she had had enough.

“They told us we weren’t productive, we weren’t useful. I’ve devoted 33 years to working for the IRS and I worked hard. It made me feel horrible,” Reynolds said.

UNION ANGER

Everett Kelley, president of the American Federation of Government Employees, the biggest federal workers’ union with 800,000 members, cited comments made by Trump’s budget chief Russ Vought when he said government workers needed to feel “trauma.”

“When they wake up in the morning, we want them to not want to go to work,” Vought said in 2023 at an event at the think tank he founded, the Center for Renewing America.

“The president has empowered people like Elon Musk and his DOGE team to harass, insult, and lie about federal employees and the work they do and force tens of thousands of employees off the job,” Kelley said.

Vought did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

An employee at the Social Security Administration, which oversees benefits for older and disabled Americans, said he decided to take the second buyout offer, in part because the uncertainty of what might happen to him each day took a toll.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, for fear of having the buyout offer rescinded, the worker said the stress led him to stay up later, drink more and exercise less.

“There were definitely moments when I felt defeated,” the worker said. “It turned your world upside down.”

Dozens of lawsuits have challenged Trump administration efforts to fire federal workers.

In the broadest ruling so far, a California federal judge on May 9 temporarily barred layoffs at 20 agencies including the departments of Agriculture, Health and Human Services, Treasury and Veterans Affairs and said workers who had already lost their jobs must be reinstated.

The administration is appealing the ruling, which said Trump can only restructure federal agencies with authorization from Congress.

The lack of mass layoffs at big agencies to date does not mean Trump won’t trigger them in coming months, especially if the legal obstacles to mass firings are lifted by appeals courts.

(Reporting by Tim Reid; Additional reporting by Nathan Layne; editing by Ross Colvin and Howard Goller)

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By James Oliphant

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Laura Loomer once had to chain herself to a building to get attention. Not any longer.

A far-right activist who has jockeyed her way up from online agitator to self-appointed presidential adviser, Loomer has long been one of President Donald Trump’s most fervent supporters.

She has recently found herself at odds with the White House, however, clashing with the administration over both policy and personnel choices that she views as counter to the MAGA movement.

In the past few weeks, Loomer has criticized the new pope, mounted a campaign against Trump’s pick for surgeon general, Casey Means, blasted his attorney general, Pam Bondi, and noisily objected to Trump’s diplomatic efforts during his Middle East trip.

If Loomer were just another online rabble-rouser, the friction likely would not matter. But with 1.6 million followers on X and her own weekly program that draws thousands of viewers, Loomer can claim she speaks for the MAGA faithful and, in turn, influence how they view the performance of the president and his administration.

Loomer has said it’s her job to keep Trump on track. She has flitted in and out of the president’s inner circle and has claimed to be responsible for the firings of National Security Adviser Mike Waltz and other aides.

“What makes her more dangerous than other people is that she clearly seems to have Trump’s ear,” said Peter Montgomery, who tracks conservative movements for the liberal advocacy group People For the American Way.

Loomer did not respond to requests for comment for this story, but made clear how she views her role during her online video show earlier this month.

“I’m not working for President Trump. I’m not getting paid by President Trump. I’m not in the Trump White House,” Loomer said during her show. “I wasn’t even on the Trump campaign. And yet, I feel like very single day, it’s a full-time job just to make sure the president is protected and that he’s receiving the information he needs to receive.”

WHITE HOUSE INFLUENCER?

Loomer met last month with Trump at the White House, after which Trump immediately fired several national security officials Loomer claimed were disloyal. Trump later denied that Loomer was the reason.

A short time later, Waltz himself was fired, something Loomer also claimed she engineered.

But the White House says that Loomer is not a presidential adviser, unofficial or otherwise. She has no pass to enter the complex, said a White House official, and there are no further meetings planned with her.

A self-proclaimed “Islamophobe” who for years argued that the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks were an inside job, Loomer has a history of provocative and self-promotional actions including handcuffing herself to Twitter’s headquarters in New York in 2018 after the platform banned her for hate speech. Other Trump supporters such as U.S. Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene have denounced her remarks as “racist, “hateful” and unrepresentative of the MAGA movement.

Last September during the presidential campaign, Loomer traveled on Trump’s plane to his debate with opponent Kamala Harris and then was by his side when he commemorated the 9/11 attacks in New York, sparking outrage among critics and concern within the campaign. Earlier, she had said the “White House would smell like curry” if Harris, who is of Indian heritage, were elected.

AT ODDS

Trump then called her a “strong person” and a “free spirit.” But Loomer has become increasingly critical of Trump’s administration, if not the president himself.

She sparred online with top Trump adviser Elon Musk over skilled workforce visas. She has repeatedly argued that the administration’s hires are being improperly vetted.

When Trump praised the new pope, Leo XIV, Loomer blasted the pontiff as “anti-MAGA” and a Marxist. She expressed dismay last week when Trump announced he was lifting economic sanctions on Syria, and when he struck an investment deal with Qatar, which she accuses of funding pro-Palestinian demonstrations in the United States. Qatar is a longtime backer of Hamas, but there is no direct evidence tying it to funding the protests.

Loomer was scornful of the possibility Trump might accept a luxury 747 from the Qatari government. “I love President Trump. I would take a bullet for him,” Loomer wrote on X. “We cannot accept a $400 million `gift’ from jihadists in suits.”

Trump has said the plane would be given to the country, not him.

She has continued to hammer Bondi for what she says is a failure to clean up the Justice Department. On Monday, she appeared on former Trump adviser Steve Bannon’s show and claimed that she has known that former President Joe Biden was terminally ill for a year. Biden’s office announced on Sunday that he has advanced prostate cancer.

Bannon, who also views himself as the conscience of the MAGA base, called her “a warrior in the information war.”

But the White House’s biggest headache may be Loomer’s crusade to derail the nomination of Casey Means as Trump’s surgeon general. In numerous posts, Loomer has argued that Means, a wellness expert who graduated from medical school but lacks a license to practice medicine, is unqualified.

“I want to know which one of President Trump’s geniuses chose a woman who literally talks to trees and spiritual mediums,” Loomer posted on X the day Means was nominated.

Trump has defended the choice.

(Reporting by James Oliphant; Additional reporting by Nandita Bose; Editing by Paul Thomasch and Alistair Bell)

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By David Shepardson

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The U.S. Transportation Department is expected to declare that fuel economy rules issued under then President Joe Biden exceeded the government’s legal authority by including electric vehicles in setting the rules, automaker officials said Monday.

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said the department’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration on Friday submitted its interpretive rule, “Resetting the Corporate Average Fuel Economy Program” to the White House for review.

The prior administration had “illegally used CAFE standards as a backdoor electric vehicle mandate – driving the price of cars up,” he said in a statement.

Removing EVs from the calculations for credits and the regulatory mandates could result in lower overall fuel economy requirements.

NHTSA in June said it would hike CAFE requirements to about 50.4 miles per gallon (4.67 liters per 100 km) by 2031 from 39.1 mpg currently for light-duty vehicles.

Last year, 120 Republican lawmakers said NHTSA exceeded its authority by adopting fuel economy standards “that effectively mandate EVs while at the same time force the internal combustion engine out of the market.”

The lawmakers said the agency “accounted for EVs in its regulatory baseline and factored that baseline into its determination of the maximum achievable CAFE standards.”

House Republicans last week proposed killing the EV tax credit and repealing fuel efficiency rules designed to prod automakers into building more zero-emission vehicles as part of a broad-based tax reform bill.

Federal law requires NHTSA to set CAFE standards at the maximum feasible level.

The Environmental Protection Agency also plans to reconsider parallel vehicle emissions rules and rescind California’s legal authority to ban sales of gas-only vehicles by 2035. The U.S. Senate this week may take up legislation passed by the House to rescind the approval for California’s rules. Automakers like General Motors and Toyota are aggressively lobbying for repeal.

NHTSA said last year the rule would reduce gasoline consumption by 64 billion gallons and cut emissions by 659 million metric tons. The agency said while some vehicles would be more expensive to buy, consumers would save on fuel costs with estimated net benefits of $35.2 billion.

(Reporting by David Shepardson; Editing by Chris Reese and Stephen Coates)

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HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — Voters on Tuesday will choose new candidates to run for some of the top jobs in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, with the winners of the Democratic primaries all but assured of victory in November in the two heavily Democratic cities.

In Philadelphia, Larry Krasner is seeking a third term as district attorney of the nation’s sixth-most populous city.

The longtime civil rights lawyer has, at times, come under heavy criticism as a prosecutor but has thus far a survived efforts to oust him that successfully removed some other progressive district attorneys, including in San Francisco, Los Angeles and Oakland.

Pittsburgh Mayor Ed Gainey, the city’s first Black mayor, is seeking a second term. Both are Democrats who originally ran as progressives and face a primary challenger.

To some extent, President Donald Trump looms over the races, as Krasner and Gainey have vowed to resist his conservative agenda.

Republicans will also get to weigh in Tuesday on the Pittsburgh mayor’s race, though their party isn’t fielding a candidate in the Philadelphia district attorney’s contest. There are also two statewide courts contests on Tuesday’s ballots.

Here’s what to know about the contests:

Krasner is running again after withstanding an impeachment attempt by Republican state lawmakers and years of being a campaign trail punching bag for Trump.

Krasner has the benefit of crime rates falling in big US cities, including Philadelphia, after they rose sharply during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Krasner’s primary opponent is Pat Dugan, a U.S. Army veteran who served in Iraq and Afghanistan and was the head administrative judge of the Philadelphia Municipal Court before he resigned to run.

Dugan has aimed to make the race about Krasner’s crime-fighting policies — he calls Krasner “Let ’em Go Larry” — and accused the incumbent of staffing the district attorneys’ office with ill-prepared and inexperienced lawyers.

Krasner originally ran in 2017 on a progressive platform that included holding police accountable and opposing the death penalty, cash bail, prosecuting minor nonviolent offenses and a culture of mass-incarceration.

Like some big-city Democrats, Krasner has turned toward pro-public safety messaging, maintaining that he is serious about pursuing violent crime and touting new technologies and strategies that his office is using to solve or prevent crime.

Krasner has repeatedly invoked Trump and suggested that he is the best candidate to stand up to him. In a TV ad, he cast himself as the foil to “Trump and his billionaire buddies, the shooting groups and gun lobby, the old system that denied people justice for too long. They can come for Philly, but I’m not backing down.”

Dugan has invoked Trump, too, saying in a TV ad that Philadelphia faces the threats of crime, injustice and a “president bent on destruction.” He also accuses Krasner of failing to deliver “real reform or make us safe. Now he wants us to believe he can take on Trump? Get real.”

Gainey and Allegheny County Controller Corey O’Connor — the son of a former Pittsburgh mayor — are jousting over affordable housing policy, homelessness, public safety and revitalizing downtown in a city that is trying to grow after recovering from the devasting collapse of its steel industry.

Gainey, who is the city’s first Black mayor and who grew up in subsidized housing, has portrayed himself as the mayor who sides with regular people and as a “mayor that’s going to fight for you” when the Trump administration threatens the city. He also touted the city’s strong economy under his watch.

O’Connor won the local party’s endorsement over Gainey. He criticized Gainey’s management of the city, saying Gainey was reckless with city finances, lacked vision to bring businesses back to downtown and fell badly short in expanding affordable housing. He also said people didn’t feel safe in Pittsburgh.

On the Republican ballot are Thomas West and Tony Moreno. Pittsburgh has not elected a Republican as mayor in nearly a century.

Two statewide court seats are opening up, one on the Commonwealth Court and one on the Superior Court.

Democrats don’t have a primary in either contest, with Washington County Judge Brandon Neuman running uncontested for Superior Court and Philadelphia Judge Stella Tsai running uncontested for Commonwealth Court.

On the Republican ticket, the Superior Court contest features Clarion County lawyer Maria Battista and Chester County Judge Ann Marie Wheatcraft. The Commonwealth Court contest features Matt Wolford of Erie County, a former state and federal prosecutor, and Josh Prince of Berks County, a prominent gun rights lawyer.

The 15-member Superior Court hears appeals of civil and criminal cases from county courts. The nine-seat Commonwealth Court hears challenges or appeals from county courts in cases involving laws or government actions. Judges are elected to 10-year terms.

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Follow Marc Levy on X at https://x.com/timelywriter.

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By Patricia Zengerle

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The U.S. Senate on Monday confirmed Charles Kushner, father of President Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner and the recipient of a presidential pardon after his conviction for witness tampering and tax evasion, to be ambassador to France.

The Senate backed Kushner 51 to 45. Senator Cory Booker, who represents Kushner’s home state of New Jersey, was the only Democrat to vote along with Trump’s fellow Republicans in favor of the nomination. Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska was the only Republican who opposed it.

Kushner pleaded guilty in 2005 to 18 federal counts, including tax evasion, retaliating against a federal witness and lying to the Federal Election Commission. He served two years in prison, the maximum allowed in a plea deal.

Prosecutors at the time said Kushner learned that his brother-in-law was cooperating with a federal investigation and hired a prostitute to lure him to a motel room for an encounter recorded with a hidden camera and sent the tape to the brother-in-law’s wife, Kushner’s sister.

Trump pardoned Kushner, whose son is married to Trump’s daughter Ivanka, in 2020.

Kushner’s confirmation was not a surprise. Trump’s fellow Republicans hold a 53-47 majority in the Senate and have confirmed every Trump nominee who has come up for a vote in the chamber since the president’s second term began on January 20.

Kushner said at his confirmation hearing that he acknowledged past “serious mistakes,” and said they might make him a better ambassador, because he had paid a price for poor judgment.

(Reporting by Patricia ZengerleEditing by Shri Navaratnam)

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By Patricia Zengerle and Richard Cowan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -U.S. Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer on Monday introduced a bill that would prevent any foreign aircraft from being used as Air Force One, the aircraft that transports the U.S. president.

Schumer introduced the “Presidential Airlift Security Act” after news last week that President Donald Trump planned to accept a $400 million airplane from Qatar, which legal experts said raised a raft of questions about the scope of laws that relate to gifts from foreign governments and are intended to thwart corruption and improper influence.

Retrofitting the luxury plane offered by Qatar’s royal family would require security upgrades, communications improvements to prevent spies from listening in and equipment to fend off incoming missiles, experts said.

The costs were not known, but could be significant given that Boeing Co’s current effort to build two new Air Force One planes exceeds $5 billion.

The bill introduced by the New York Democrat would prohibit the Department of Defense from using any funds to procure or modify foreign aircraft in order to serve as the president’s air transportation.

The measure is unlikely to become law, given that Trump’s Republicans hold majorities in the Senate and House of Representatives, which would both have to approve it and override a veto if Trump objected.

But it marked another effort by Democrats to oppose the plan. Schumer last week vowed to block all of Trump’s nominees to the Justice Department until the agency reports what it knows about Qatar’s offer.

Multiple congressional Republicans also raised concerns about Qatar’s offer.

Trump said it would be “stupid” for him to refuse the offer.

(Reporting by Richard Cowan and Patricia Zengerle, Editing by Franklin Paul)

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By Andy Sullivan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Former U.S. President Joe Biden’s cancer announcement revived questions on Monday about the extent of his health issues during his tenure, with President Donald Trump saying Biden should have been more transparent with the public.

“I’m surprised that the public wasn’t notified a long time ago, because to get to stage 9, that’s a long time,” Trump told reporters on Monday, misstating Biden’s diagnosis. Trump also voiced sympathy on Sunday in a social media post.

Biden’s office said he had been diagnosed on Friday with “aggressive” prostate cancer that had spread to his bones. Cancers that have spread, or metastasized, are considered stage 4, the most advanced.

The remarks by Trump and other Republicans captured the renewed focus on the health of the 82-year-old Democratic former president with the publication of a book that details widespread concerns about Biden’s mental acuity among aides and Democratic insiders as he pursued reelection in 2024.

Excerpts from the book have prompted new questions about whether critical information was withheld from the American public about Biden’s ability to serve in the White House. Biden’s closest aides have dismissed those concerns, saying Biden was fully capable of making important decisions. 

“Why didn’t the American people have a better sense of his health picture?” Vice President JD Vance said to reporters as he wrapped up a trip to Rome. “Why didn’t the American people have more accurate information about what he was actually dealing with? This is serious stuff.”

A spokesperson for Biden did not return a request for comment. Biden has appeared on television to rebut accusations that his mental capacity had diminished during his 2021-2025 term. “There’s nothing to sustain that,” he said on ABC’s ‘The View’ on May 8.

Biden, the oldest person ever to serve as president, was forced to drop his reelection bid last July after a stumbling debate performance against Trump eroded his support among fellow Democrats. Biden’s vice president, Kamala Harris, launched a bid of her own but lost to Trump in the November 2024 election.

DOCTORS SURPRISED

Most prostate cancers are detected at an earlier stage.

“I would assume the former president gets a very thorough physical every year,” said Dr. Chris George, medical director of the cancer program at Northwestern Health Network. “It’s sort of hard for me to believe that he’s had a (blood test) within the past year that was normal.”

Dr. Herbert Lepor, a urologist at NYU Langone Health, said that given the available screening options, “it is a bit unusual in the modern era to detect cancers at this late stage.”

Some 70% of prostate cancer cases were diagnosed before they spread to other organs, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 

U.S. guidelines do not recommend annual blood screening for men over 70 and it is unclear whether the annual presidential exam would have included those tests. 

The new book, “Original Sin,” by journalists Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson put a spotlight on Biden’s mental acuity in his final months in office.

“It was a mistake for Democrats to not listen to the voters earlier,” U.S. Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut, a potential 2028 Democratic presidential candidate, said on NBC on Sunday.

Biden faced no serious challenge for the 2024 Democratic nomination, and party leaders repeatedly vouched for his ability to serve a second four-year term even though 74% of Americans in January 2024 thought he was too old for the job, according to Reuters/Ipsos polling.

Biden’s cancer diagnosis drew an outpouring of sympathy from supporters and rivals alike. Biden thanked the public on behalf of his wife and himself for their support in a social media post released early on Monday.

“Cancer touches us all. Like so many of you, Jill and I have learned that we are strongest in the broken places. Thank you for lifting us up with love and support,” he said.

(Reporting by Andy Sullivan, additional reporting by Kristina Cooke, Nancy Lapid and Steve Holland; Editing by Ross Colvin and Howard Goller)

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BEND, Ore. (AP) — John Thompson, who guided preparations for the 2020 census as director of the U.S. Census Bureau, has died.

Thompson died May 9 at his home in Bend, Oregon. He was 73.

Thompson was confirmed in 2013 as the Census Bureau’s 24th director after being nominated by President Barack Obama. He departed in 2017 following the election of President Donald Trump to his first term but helped lay the groundwork for many of the innovations implemented in the 2020 head count.

Those included the utilization of smart phones and the widespread use of online responses, which were instrumental in helping the bureau to navigate one of the most difficult censuses in U.S. history during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“He guided preparations for the 2020 census, which became our nation’s most automated and technically advanced ever,” Ron Jarmin, the current acting director of the Census Bureau, said in a statement. “With his decades of experience as a public servant, he understood the importance of our agency’s organizational health and made it a priority.”

After earning bachelor’s and master’s degrees at Virginia Tech, Thompson joined the Census Bureau in 1975 and rose to the position of associate director for decennial census programs, which put him in charge of all aspects of the 2000 census. He helped pioneer optical scanning and intelligent character recognition, which allowed handwritten items on census forms to be converted into responses, according to the statistical agency.

The head count figures collected during the once-a-decade census are used to allocate states’ congressional seats and Electoral College votes, and help determine the distribution of federal funding.

Thompson left the Census Bureau in 2002 for more than a decade to work at the University of Chicago’s National Opinion Research Center, eventually becoming its president and CEO. At NORC, Thompson was the project manager for the National Immunization Surveys, which was the the largest telephone social science survey in the United States at the time.

“It would be hard to overstate John’s influence on NORC and its people,” Dan Gaylin, president and CEO of NORC, said in a statement. “John’s confident, empowering, values-driven leadership enabled the people of NORC to see that future and make it a reality.”

After leaving the Census Bureau in 2017, Thompson became executive director of the Council of Professional Associations for Federal Statistics for a year before retiring in 2018.

Thompson is survived by his wife, Bonnie, and three children.

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The Associated Press and NORC are partners in the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, which conducts survey research on a variety of topics.

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