Washington (CNN) Lawmakers on the House panel tasked with the Commerce Department's 2020 funding faced an empty chair on Wednesday, neatly set up with a name placard and a water bottle, where Secretary Wilbur Ross would have been seated if he hadn't rejected invitations to testify. Cabinet secretaries and agency heads regularly visit Capitol Hill to advocate for their budget priorities, but this year Ross declined to appear before both Senate and House appropriators amid mounting controversy regarding his decision to include a citizenship question on the upcoming 2020 census. Ross wrote in a letter to the panel Tuesday that he would not attend the hearing, expressing concerns his presence "would unfortunately distract" from the department's budget request. Rep. Robert Aderholt, the top Republican on the subcommittee, said he believed the secretary's absence "stems around concerns that this hearing might focus more on political or legal issues than the budget itself." Some Democrats said they had planned to grill Ross on the citizenship question, as well as his financial disclosures.

Source: CNN April 03, 2019 21:31 UTC