Turmoil at the U.S. Census Bureau as Director Resigns

"The director of the U.S. Census Bureau is resigning, leaving the agency leaderless at a time when it faces a crisis over funding for the 2020 decennial count of the U.S. population and beyond," reports Tara Bahrampour.

Thompson's resignation ends a 27-tenure at the Census Bureau, where he served as director since 2013.

The news, which surprised census experts, follows an April congressional budget allocation for the census that critics say is woefully inadequate. And it comes less than a week after a prickly hearing at which Thompson told lawmakers that cost estimates for a new electronic data collection system had ballooned by nearly 50 percent.

Bahrampour includes more details on both the budget allocation and the new data collection system.

The news of Thompson's resignation cut through the noise and punditry of a busy news day, getting picked up by National Public Radio, The Week, and The Hill, among other news sites. Planetizen last checked-in with the growing controversies regarding Census funding in April.