The lame-duck Senate has a new bill to protect the census after Trump's interference

A briefcase of a census taker is seen as she knocks on the door of a residence Aug. 11, 2020, in Winter Park, Fla. (AP Photo/John Raoux, File)

Days before this Congress is set to end, a senator has squeezed in a bill intended to help block the kind of census interference by former President Donald Trump’s administration that upended the country’s 2020 head count.

Sen. Brian Schatz of Hawaii — a Democrat who has been a vocal advocate of the national, once-a-decade tally that’s used to determine political representation and federal funding — introduced the legislation Thursday as a companion to a similar bill the U.S. House passed in September.

Asked about the timing of his last-minute bill — which is not expected to get through a committee, let alone the Senate floor, in this lame-duck period — Schatz pointed to difficulty finding bipartisan support.