( - promoted by Matt Glazer)
If demographers were rock stars, Steve Murdock would be Eric Clapton, even though he only ever wanted to be Johnny Unitas. The Texas Observer blog reports that Steve Murdock, the State Demographer, has been nominated to be Director of the U.S. Census. This is surely good for the Census, but bad for Texas. As Jake Bernstein points out in his post, Murdock has been a constant, if sometimes overly technical, prophet of a vastly different Texas, where Hispanics are the majority and our failure to invest in their education and empowerment turns us into a Third World state. (Texas is already -- as of 2005 -- a majority minority state, and Murdock predicts the population will be over 50% Hispanic by the 2020s.) He's traveled the state extensively, making PowerPoint presentations to diverse groups and enlisting them in the cause of planning for a better future. He created well-researched by readable documents that explained the main points of his thesis. He even wrote a book. As they say, demography is destiny. It is hard to overestimate the importance of demography in politics and public policy. It is the foundation -- who we are -- and in many ways derivative of what we will become. Steve Mrudock played a key role in getting a wide panoply of Texans to wake up and smell the coffee. I don't know who would replace Steve Murdock, but I hope his successor has his vision, talent and energy. |
