From: Census2000(a)ccmc.org
Lawmakers Seek Legislative Solutions In Wake of Supreme
Court Ruling in Census Case
Several bills have been introduced in Congress that would,
if enacted, change the way the 2000 census is conducted.
House census subcommittee Chairman Dan Miller (R-FL)
introduced "The Local Census Quality Control Act" (H.R. 472)
to require that local government officials be allowed to
review preliminary census housing unit and population
counts. Rep. Miller said the bill is "designed to provide a
much needed quality check on census numbers before they
become final."
The Census Bureau replaced the 1990 Post Census Local Review
with expanded pre-census activities that give local
governments an opportunity to review and make changes to
address lists and maps. Last week, the chairman unveiled an
initiative, called America Counts Today, to enhance
traditional counting methods. Reinstating post census local
review was one component of that proposal.
The census subcommittee has scheduled a hearing on the local
review program for Thursday, February 11, at 10:00 a.m., in
room 2247 Rayburn House Office Building.
Reacting to the recent Supreme Court ruling in Department of
Commerce v. U.S. House of Representatives, Rep. Carolyn
Maloney (D-NY) introduced legislation (H.R. 548) to allow
sampling to produce the census numbers used for all purposes
if the Secretary of Commerce deems it feasible. The census
subcommittee's senior Democrat was joined by 33 original
cosponsors in her effort to amend section 195 of the Census
Act (title
13, United States Code), which the high Court said bars
sampling to calculate the state population totals used for
congressional apportionment.
Rep. Maloney said she introduced the legislation because the
Court's decision "force[s] the Bureau to produce two sets of
numbers from the same census, and use the less accurate
number to apportion seats" in Congress. Rep. Maloney
announced that Sen. Daniel Moynihan (D-NY) and Sen. Jeff
Bingaman (D-NM) would introduce a companion bill in the
Senate. Both the Miller and Maloney bills were referred to
the Committee on Government Reform.
Last month, Sen. Moynihan introduced S. 166, which would
require the Commerce Secretary to determine annually how
much federal aid each State gained or lost because of
undercounts or overcounts in the census. The bill was
referred to the Committee on Governmental Affairs.
More congressional committee assignments: Republicans on the
House Committee on Government Reform have named their
members to the census subcommittee, which authorizes and
oversees activities of the Census Bureau. Below is the full
panel line-up.
Subcommittee on the Census House Committee on Government
Reform
114 O'Neill House Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20515
Republicans
Rep. Dan Miller, Chairman (FL)
Rep. John Doolittle (CA)
Rep. Thomas M. Davis (VA)
Rep. Paul Ryan (WI)
Rep. Mark Souder (IN)
Democrats
Rep. Carolyn B. Maloney, Ranking Member (NY)
Rep. Danny K. Davis (IL)
Rep. Harold E. Ford, Jr. (TN)
Correction: In the February 2 News Alert, we incorrectly
attributed a statement to Commerce Under Secretary Robert
Shapiro concerning the Post Census Local Review (PCLR)
program conducted during the 1990 census. The Census
Bureau's decision not to continue this program in the 2000
census was discussed at a mayor's conference on January 27th
in Washington, D.C. In response to a comment by Detroit
Mayor Dennis Archer, Mr. Shapiro praised the city for its
successful partnership with the Bureau to improve the
accuracy of the address lists being prepared for 2000. Mr.
Shapiro did not say that many of the people added to the
1990 census through PCLR lived in Detroit. That statement
was made by Rep. Maloney, who participated in the panel
discussion along with Mr. Shapiro, Rep. Dan Miller, and
Census Monitoring Board Co-Chair Kenneth Blackwell. We
apologize for the mistake.
Questions about the information contained in this News Alert
may be directed to TerriAnn Lowenthal at (202) 484-2270 or,
by e-mail at <terriann2k(a)aol.com>. Please direct all
requests to receive News Alerts, and all changes in
address/phone/fax/e-mail, to the Census 2000 Initiative at
<Census2000(a)ccmc.org> or 202/326-8700. Please feel free to
circulate this information to colleagues and other
interested individuals.
From: Census2000 <Census2000(a)ccmc.org>
President Sends 2000 Budget Request to Congress
Monitoring Board Issues Two Reports
President Clinton's fiscal year 2000 (FY00) budget proposal,
sent to Congress yesterday, includes $2.789 billion for the
decennial census, an increase of $1.76 billion over the
appropriation for the current year. The budget request was
prepared before the Supreme Court ruled last week that the
Census Act prohibits sampling to calculate the state
population totals for congressional apportionment purposes.
The Census Bureau is developing a new plan for 2000 that
conforms to the Court's opinion. The cost of that plan is
expected to be significantly higher than the current
request.
The largest portion of the ten-year cost of the census is
spent in the year the count takes place. In FY00, the
Census Bureau will: launch the full-scale paid advertising
campaign; mail (or hand-deliver in sparsely-populated areas)
questionnaires to the 118 million residential addresses on
its list; hire several hundred thousand temporary
enumerators to visit households that do not respond by mail;
and process the data as forms are returned.
The budget request for the census also includes funding for
the American Community Survey (ACS), a new program being
developed to eliminate the need for a census long form in
2010 by collecting demographic and housing data throughout
the decade. The Bureau plans to collect ACS data from a
national sample of households, in order to compare the
results with the 2000 census and establish a benchmark for
the full-scale survey starting in 2003. Because FY00 ends
on September 30, 2000, the cost of tabulating and publishing
the census data will be included in the budget for fiscal
year 2001.
Funding for the decennial census is part of the Periodic
Censuses and Programs ("Periodics") account, one of two main
funding categories for the Census Bureau. The Periodics
account covers other activities that support census
operations, such as mapping and address list development
under Geographic Support and technology for data
processing. Excluding decennial census funding, the
President requested $156 million for the remainder of the
Periodics account, about $31 million over this year's
funding level. The second main funding category for the
Bureau is Salaries and Expenses (S & E), which covers
ongoing surveys to collect important demographic, economic,
and social data. The President proposed $157 million for
the S & E account, $21 million more than the current year's
allocation.
As Congress considers the Bureau's budget for FY00, it also
must contend with funding for the last quarter of the
current fiscal year. Last fall, Congress and the
Administration agreed to appropriate funds for the Commerce,
Justice, State and The Judiciary budget account only through
June 15, 1999, in order to allow more time to resolve the
long-standing controversy over the use of sampling methods
in the census.
Census Monitoring Board reports: The eight-member Census
Monitoring Board, established one year ago pursuant to a
provision in the Census Bureau's FY98 funding bill,
submitted its first reports to Congress late last week.
Reaching sharply different conclusions about how best to
eliminate the persistent census undercount, the four members
appointed by the congressional Republican leadership
submitted one report, while the four members appointed by
the President submitted their own document.
Saying that it is "impossible to produce an accurate or
complete count using traditional methods of census
enumeration," the Presidentially-appointed members concluded
that a post-enumeration survey (PES) to measure the accuracy
of the count is "an essential part of any modern census."
They noted that the decision on whether the Bureau should
produce two sets of census numbers in light of the recent
Supreme Court ruling is "a political issue outside of the
Board's purview" but said a PES is necessary to avoid "a
massive undercount of minorities and children." The
Presidential appointees recommended hiring more personnel
and spending more money on advertising in areas
with high undercount rates, as well as grants to local
governments to help with address list development. They
endorsed the Bureau's decision to replace the Post Census
Local Review program conducted in 1990 with pre-census
activities to improve the accuracy of the address lists,
called Local Update of Census Addresses, or LUCA. The
Presidential members also urged the Bureau to conduct
extensive research into the use of administrative records
for future censuses.
Saying they "strongly disagree" with statistical adjustment
of the census, the congressionally-appointed members wrote
that their report revolves around a question: "When it comes
to the census, if proven methods can find real people, why
do we want to guess?" They concluded that the Bureau's
planned uses of sampling "favor[s] national accuracy at the
expense of local accuracy" and offered several steps they
said ould "find real people where they really live." The
congressional appointees recommended giving local officials
an opportunity to review population and housing unit counts
before the final tally, as they did in 1990 during the Post
Census Local Review program, and supported reinstatement of
a 1990 program to locate people on parole or probation using
administrative records. They also advocated using Medicaid,
Food Stamp, and other program records to find children who
might be missed. The congressional members also asked
Commerce William Daley to meet with them on a regular basis.
The U.S. General Accounting Office concluded in a 1992
critique of the last census that coverage improvement
programs "contributed relatively little to the census counts
and showed evidence of high rates of erroneous
enumerations," although they did add some people to the
count who otherwise would have been missed. Post Census
Local Review (PCLR), the parolee/probationer check, and a
recheck of vacant housing units were among the programs used
in 1990 to improve the count after nonresponse follow-up
was completed. The Monitoring Board held a hearing on
administrative records last fall. All of the witnesses
concluded that existing program records could not be used to
reduce the disproportionate undercount of people of color
and children in 2000. According to Census Bureau
evaluations, about half of the 500,000 people added to the
1990 census using parole and probation records were included
erroneously.
The decision not to conduct PCLR in 2000 was part of the
fundamental redesign of the census process. The Bureau
determined that working with local governments in advance to
compile the address lists and conducting a quality-check
survey to measure under- and overcounts in the initial tally
would improve accuracy more than a massive recanvass of
neighborhoods late in the census process. At a meeting of
mayors last week in Washington, D.C., Detroit Mayor Dennis
Archer urged the Bureau to let local officials review
preliminary counts in 2000 but also voiced continued support
for statistical sampling to produce more accurate numbers.
Under Secretary of Commerce Robert Shapiro noted that a high
percentage of the people added to the 1990 census during
PCLR lived in Detroit.
The report prepared by the congressional members of the
Monitoring Board is available on their web site at
http://www.cmbc.gov/ . The Presidential appointees' report
will be available through the Government Printing Office web
site.
Congressional oversight hearings: The House Subcommittee on
the Census held a hearing in Phoenix, AZ, on January 29, to
discuss local suggestions for conducting an accurate count
in 2000. Rep. Dan Miller (R-FL) and Rep. Carolyn Maloney
(D-NY), the panel's chairman and senior Democrat
respectively, were joined by two members of Arizona's
congressional delegation, Rep. J. D. Hayworth (R-AZ) and
Rep. John Shadegg (R-AZ). Witness included local officials,
civic leaders, and several representatives of American
Indian Tribes. We will provide a summary of the proceedings
in a future News Alert.
Nearly 20 local elected officials and community activists
signed a letter to Reps. Miller and Maloney, recommending
ways to ensure an accurate count in Phoenix and the State of
Arizona. The letter noted the high percentage of Hispanic
Americans in the city and state populations, as well as the
large number of American Indians living on reservations.
The letters also urged Congress to support the use of
sampling methods for purposes other than congressional
apportionment, saying failure to do so would ensure an
undercount of people of color and low-income people in
2000. Signers included senior officials from the Arizona
Education Association, Urban League of Greater Phoenix,
National Congress of American Indians, Arizona Hispanic
Community Forum, League of Women Voters, Asian Chamber of
Commerce, and American Jewish Committee, and Avondale Mayor
Thomas Morales Jr.
Questions about the information contained in this News Alert
may be directed to TerriAnn Lowenthal at (202) 484-2270 or,
by e-mail at <terriann2k(a)aol.com>. Please direct all
requests to receive News Alerts, and all changes in
address/phone/fax/e-mail, to Census 2000 at
<Census2000(a)ccmc.org> or 202/326-8700. Please feel free to
circulate this information to colleagues and other
interested individuals.
From: Census2000 <Census2000(a)ccmc.org>
Sampling Supporters and Critics Spar over Reach of Supreme
Court Ruling
Rep. Miller Proposal Would Expand Traditional Methods
Legislators and stakeholder organizations offered sharply
different interpretations of last week's Supreme Court
ruling in a census lawsuit challenging the use of sampling
to count the population. In its 5-4 decision issued January
25, the Court held that the Census Act bars sampling to
calculate the state population totals for purposes of
congressional apportionment. But writing for the majority,
Justice Sandra Day O'Connor also said that the same
provision of law "require[s] that sampling be used for
[purposes other than apportionment] if 'feasible.'" (See
January 27 News Alert for a summary of the decision and
Administration reaction.)
Rep. Dan Miller (R-FL), who chairs the census subcommittee,
said that the Court "has ruled that sampling is dead." He
urged the Administration not to "sidestep the Court's ruling
by insisting the Census Bureau be required to produce two
numbers in 2000, one based on counting and the other based
on polling." Speaking at the annual mid-winter meeting of
the U.S. Conference of Mayors, the chairman said the Court
also forbade the use of sampling to derive the numbers used
for redistricting (i.e., drawing the political boundaries
within states). Whether adjusted census numbers based on
sampling can be used to distribute Federal funds, Rep.
Miller noted, is "a totally separate issue." At a census
subcommittee hearing last fall, the chairman said that
"sampling is an issue of apportionment of representatives
not, I repeat, not the distribution of federal aid"
(emphasis in original statement). However, the congressman
also appeared to rule out the need for a second set of
counts, saying, "the Bureau has long felt that two sets of
numbers would breed controversy and confusion."
According to press accounts, Sen. Judd Gregg (R-NH), who
chairs the Census Bureau's funding subcommittee, said his
panel would not provide funds for a census that includes
sampling. Rep. Harold Rogers (R-KY), head of the House
appropriations subcommittee, said he "expect[s] the
administration to move forward with a legal census, and
we've already provided the necessary money to do so."
Supporters of the Census Bureau's original plan to
supplement traditional counting methods with statistical
sampling said that the narrow focus of the decision on
apportionment means that the 2000 census must produce a
second set of numbers, if the Bureau deems it feasible, for
all other purposes. "The court left in place the
requirement to produce accurate, adjusted numbers for
distributing federal funds and drawing the lines of every
federal, state and local legislative district in the
country," said Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY), the senior
Democrat on the census subcommittee. The congresswoman said
President Clinton would veto any legislation that restricted
the Bureau's ability to use sampling for non-apportionment
purposes. Congress must pass a spending bill by June 15 to
keep funds flowing to the Census Bureau, the Commerce
Department and several other federal departments. Rep.
Maloney also questioned how statistically adjusted numbers
would be available for distributing federal funds if the
Bureau does not produce two sets of census counts.
Southeastern Legal Foundation president Matthew Glavin, who
filed the lawsuit that led to the Court ruling, said "the
integrity of the census count, on which we base political
representation across America, is protected and intact."
The Citizens for an Honest Count Coalition, a group of 30
organizations opposed to sampling, hailed the Court's
decision as "a great victory for the rule of law."
Americans for Tax Reform, an anti-tax increase organization
that spearheaded the Coalition, said the Court "blocked
Clinton's population polling scheme that was a partisan
attempt to gain more Democratic seats in the House of
Representatives."
Echoing the response of many civil rights advocates, the
National Asian Pacific American Legal Consortium, which
represented several parties in the lawsuit, said it would
continue to press for a census that includes sampling
methods to correct undercounts and overcounts for
non-apportionment purposes such as redistricting and the
allocation of federal funds. The Leadership Conference on
Civil Rights, comprising 180 organizations, also urged
Congress to lift the statutory ban on the use of sampling to
produce the apportionment numbers. The American Jewish
Congress said Congress must allow the use of statistical
methods "if it is concerned about accurately knowing how
many Americans there are and where they live."
Attorneys for the City of Los Angeles, which led a group of
states, cities and Members of Congress who intervened in
support of the Census Bureau's plan, said they would return
to court, if necessary, "to compel the use of [sampling] to
assure the fair allocation of federal funds." At the Mayors'
conference, Under Secretary of Commerce for Economic Affairs
Robert Shapiro said the Bureau would release a new census
plan in a few weeks that conforms to the Supreme Court's
ruling.
Rep. Miller proposes initiative to bolster traditional
counting methods: Following the Supreme Court ruling last
week, Rep. Miller proposed several initiatives "designed to
increase local community involvement and count everyone in
the next census." Calling his plan America Counts Today
(ACT), the census panel chairman said the President and
congressional Democrats must "put partisanship aside so we
can work together to save the 2000 census." The proposal
includes hiring at least 100,000 additional census
enumerators to work in the hardest-to-count communities;
reinstating the Post Census Local Review program (used in
1990) that gave local officials a chance to review
population and housing unit counts before the final tally;
adding $300 million to the $100 million paid advertising
campaign; providing matching federal grants to communities
and nonprofit groups for outreach activities; sending a
second census form to all households; and asking Americorps
participants to help with the count.
In response to Miller's proposal, unveiled at the Mayors'
conference, Rep. Maloney said that New York City allocated
additional funds and personnel to help with the 1990 census
but the effort still fell short. Relatively few people were
added to the count through the Post Census Local Review
program, the congresswoman said. According to Census Bureau
evaluations, the 1990 program added about 125,000 people to
the census at a cost of $9.6 million; subsequent research
found that 12 percent of those additions were incorrect.
Rep. Maloney also expressed concern about the Bureau's
ability to hire more enumerators in a tight labor market.
Tomorrow: Census Monitoring Board issues two reports;
President sends 2000 budget request to Congress.
Questions about the information contained in this News Alert
may be directed to TerriAnn Lowenthal at (202) 484-2270 or,
by e-mail at <terriann2k(a)aol.com>. Please direct all
requests to receive News Alerts, and all changes in
address/phone/fax/e-mail, to Census 2000 at
<Census2000(a)ccmc.org> or 202/326-8700. Please feel free to
circulate this information to colleagues and other
interested individuals.
Can someone send me a link or an attached document that has either or both
1) the proposed long form for 2000 (an example) 2) the 1990 long form...
Thanks.....
Joshua Masnick Kim Ph.D.
Visiting Assistant Professor
West Virginia University - Department of Sociology and Anthropology
Morgantown WV 26506-6326
PO Box 6326
phone (304) 293-5801 ext. 1633
fax (304) 293-5994
e-mail: jkim4(a)wvu.eduhttp://www.as.wvu.edu:8080/jkim/
<<RE: Re[2]: Employer File Update for Decennial Census >>
Several of you have responded to my question on what is to be done with
journey-to-work coding, including two responses from the Census. I've
attached a response I sent directly to Phil Salopek of the Census Bureau
because I think it touches on something common to many of your agencies -
starting "fresh" with a new database to review when many of you have put in
a lot of effort during the 90's to put together a geocodable listing on your
own.
Many of your comments made references to presentations and discussions at
the annual TRB meeting held earlier this month. I did not go to TRB this
year and no doubt many other MPO staffs were not there or made it to these
discussions. I don't know if others have already asked the kind of
questions I'm asking or not, but let me know if you see any problems with
the issues I'm raising - or if you think they're not serious problems at
all.
Please place Earnest R. Lloyd (e-mail: elloyd(a)nctcog.dst.tx.us) and Rocky
Gardiner (e-mail: rgardiner(a)nctcog.dst.tx.us) on the CTPP mail list.
Thank you,
Earnest R. Lloyd
Research Associate
Research and Information Services Department
North Central Texas Council of Governments
P.O. BOX 5888
Arlington, TX 76005-5888
Phone: (817) 695 - 9161
FAX: (817) 640 - 4428
E-mail: elloyd(a)nctcog.dst.tx.us
I chatted with Bob and Phil after the A1D08 committee meeting and asked the ? 2 them. The answer was reasonable (so I think they should be able to get an answer to us soon), but since I can't remember exactly what they said, I don't want to paraphrase what I thought I heard. Hopefully they can deliver the product we need, but if you have an employer that has multiple locations (here in the Seattle area, Boeing has always been our big problem with Census products) it is best to work directly with that employer.
I have a question for the CTPP group. About this time 10 years ago the
Census requested of MPO's an up-to-date list of employer addresses for use
in the journey-to-work coding. If you're like us, you've made lots of
improvements locally in the geocoding of these addresses. But I have not
heard a word from the Census on supplying them with this list for the 2000
geocoding, and I've sent two e-mails to the Census inquiring about this that
to date have gone unanswered. Does anyone know what, if anything, is going
on in this area? Is it being handled through a different avenue?
-----Original Message-----
From: ed c [SMTP:berwyned(a)mcs.com]
Sent: Monday, January 25, 1999 4:24 PM
To: ctpp maillist
Subject: [CTPP] BREAKING NEWS ALERT
January 25, 1999
From: Census2000 <Census2000(a)ccmc.org>
5 - 4 Court Decision Bars Sampling For Purposes of
Congressional Apportionment;
Political Debate Shifts to Use of Sampling for Other
Purposes
Justices Express Widely Differing Views on Meaning of Census
Act
In a close decision issued yesterday, Justice O'Connor led a
slim majority of five Justices in reaching the conclusion
that section 195 of the Census Act (title 13, United States
Code) "prohibits the proposed uses of statistical sampling
in calculating the population for purposes of
apportionment." The Justices expressed a wide range of
views on whether the Act allows the use of sampling to
derive the state population totals used for congressional
apportionment. Justice Scalia authored a separate opinion
concurring in O'Connor's conclusion, in which Justice Thomas
joined in full and Justice Kennedy and Chief Justice
Rehnquist joined in substantial part.
Justice Stevens, author of the dissenting opinion, was
joined by Justices Souter, Ginsburg, and Breyer in reaching
the conclusion that "[t]he Census Act unambiguously
authorizes the Secretary of Commerce to use sampling
procedures when taking the decennial census." Justice Breyer
set forth somewhat different reasons for reaching the same
conclusion in a concurring opinion.
The Justices also split several ways on whether the parties
challenging the census plan had legal standing to do so.
The five Justices in the majority concluded that the
plaintiffs in Glavin v. Clinton had standing because at
least one litigant, a resident of Indiana, successfully
demonstrated (based on analysis done by University of
Wisconsin government professor, Dr. Ronald Weber) that his
state would lose a congressional seat if statistical methods
were used in the 2000 census. The Justices also noted that
residents of some counties would be injured by the use of
sampling because their votes would be diluted relative to
counties with higher undercount rates. Because it reached a
decision on the merits of the Glavin case, the Court
dismissed the similar case brought by the U.S. House of
Representatives at the direction of former Speaker Newt
Gingrich.
In his dissenting opinion, Justice Stevens said he would
have granted standing to the House plaintiffs, as well, and
then overturned the lower court decision in that case.
Justice Breyer, however, agreed with the majority's
conclusion on standing. Justices Ginsburg and Souter took
exception to the majority's consideration of intrastate
redistricting in deciding the standing question.
The Court's opinion: Justice O'Connor placed great weight on
what she described as a 200-year congressional prohibition
on the use of sampling to calculate the apportionment
population. Through various amendments to the Census Act,
O'Connor said, Congress authorized an increased level of
sampling for collecting information other than the census
counts used for congressional apportionment. When Congress
amended section 195 in 1976, O'Connor wrote, it "changed a
provision that permitted the use of sampling for purposes
other than apportionment into one that required that
sampling be used for such purposes if 'feasible'. They also
added to the existing delegation of authority to the
Secretary to carry out the decennial census a statement
indicating that despite the move to mandatory use of
sampling in collecting non-apportionment information, the
Secretary retained substantial authority to determine the
manner in which the decennial census is conducted."
(emphasis in italics in original)
Justice O'Connor also noted that when Congress debated the
1976 amendments to section 195, it did not discuss the
possible effect of the change on the apportionment
calculation. This silence, O'Connor wrote, demonstrates
that "Members of Congress voting on the bill read the text
of the statute, as do we, to prohibit the use of sampling in
determining the population for apportionment purposes."
In his concurring opinion, Justice Scalia ridiculed the
dissenters' efforts to reconcile the apparent prohibition on
sampling for apportionment purposes in section 195 with the
Secretary's authority to use sampling in the census in
section 141(a), which directs the Secretary to conduct the
census. He was also swayed, Scalia wrote, by his strong
doubt that the Constitution permits sampling in the census.
The dissent: The dissenting opinion differed sharply with
the reasoning of the majority, calling the Court's
conclusion "an unusual tour de force." The Census Act,
Justice Stevens wrote, contains two provisions on sampling:
"an unlimited authorization" in section 141(a), giving the
Secretary of Commerce "unqualified authority" to use
sampling in taking the census, and "a limited mandate" in
section 195, directing the Secretary to use sampling.
However, under the second provision, the Secretary may
decide not to use sampling in calculating the apportionment
population or when he considers it infeasible, Stevens
noted. Moreover, he said, the two provisions must be read
consistently, with the provision relating specifically to
the decennial census (section 141) prevailing over the
other.
Justice Stevens said that the 1976 amendments "unambiguously
endorsed the use of sampling." "[T]he Court's
interpretation of the 1976 amendment to section 141 drains
it of any meaning," Stevens wrote.
While the Court's opinion did not reach the Constitutional
issue, the dissenters also concluded that the requirement
for an "actual enumeration" does not proscribe methods
Congress may direct for the census. Quoting an earlier
Supreme Court opinion (relating to the inclusion of overseas
military personnel in the census) that the census must serve
"the constitutional goal of equal representation," Stevens
said that using the most complete and accurate methods would
best serve that purpose. In his opinion concurring with the
four dissenters, Justice Breyer put forth his primary reason
for concluding that the law does not bar the uses of
sampling proposed by the Census Bureau in its plan for 2000.
Breyer said he believes that Congress only intended to
prevent the use of sampling as a substitute for traditional
counting methods, not their use as a supplement to a direct
counting effort. He pointed to the collection of
demographic and housing information on the census long form
as evidence of this distinction, saying that section 195
requires the Secretary of Commerce to collect data for
purposes other than apportionment strictly on a sample
basis. Therefore, Breyer said, the apportionment
"exception" to the use of sampling referred only to the
collection of information based entirely on a sample. He
also noted that the Bureau has used statistical estimation
procedures such as imputation in past censuses to account
for people from whom it could not obtain responses directly.
The Administration's response: At a press conference
yesterday, Commerce Secretary William Daley called the
Court's decision "disappoint[ing]," but noted that the
decision only dealt with the use of sampling for
congressional apportionment and "affirmed the legality of
sampling for other purposes." The Census Bureau, Daley
said, is reviewing both the opinion and the dress rehearsal
results, to ensure that "the 2000 census is designed to
produce the most accurate accounting of the American
people." In response to reporters' questions, he alluded to
the possibility that the Bureau would produce two sets of
census numbers, but did not indicate that such a decision
had been made.
White House Press Secretary Joe Lockhart also called the
Court's opinion "a limited decision under the existing
statute" that did not address whether sampling could be used
for redistricting or the allocation of federal funds.
Questions about the information contained in this News Alert
may be directed to TerriAnn Lowenthal at (202) 484-2270 or,
by e-mail at <terriann2k(a)aol.com>. Please direct all
requests to receive News Alerts, and all changes in
address/phone/fax/e-mail, to Census 2000 at
<Census2000(a)ccmc.org> or 202/326-8700. Please feel free to
circulate this information to colleagues and other
interested individuals.
********** C E N S U S 2 0 0 0 B U L L E T I N
**********
Vol. 3 - No. 1 Jan. 25,
1999
Following the U.S. Supreme Court's 5-to-4 ruling today
against the use, for purposes of congressional
apportionment, of statistical sampling in Census 2000,
Commerce Department Secretary William M. Daley issued the
following statement:
"To begin with, let me say that we are very grateful that
the Supreme Court issued its ruling quickly, although we
obviously are disappointed with the decision.
"Our focus will continue to be conducting the most accurate
census possible. "As the President said in his State of the
Union Address, 'since every person in America counts, every
American ought to be counted.'
"As everyone knows, the 1990 census was the first in fifty
years to be less accurate than its predecessor.
"It contained 12 million mistakes, undercounting millions of
Americans, especially children and members of racial and
ethnic minority groups. "The Census Bureau proposed the use
of sampling to correct these errors, an approach that was
strongly supported by the National Academy of Sciences and
the statistical community.
"It is very important to understand that the only issue
before the Supreme Court was the use of sampling for
apportioning the seats in the House of Representatives among
the States.
"The court itself summarized its ruling by stating 'we
conclude that the Census Act prohibits the proposed uses of
statistical sampling in calculating the population for
purposes of apportionment.'
"In reaching that conclusion, the Court actually affirmed
the legality of sampling for other purposes.
"The Census Bureau is reviewing the Court's opinion and the
results of the dress rehearsal in order to ensure that the
2000 census is designed to produce the most accurate
accounting of the American people and, of course, to comply
fully with the law.
"Thank you very much."
Earlier in the day, Census Bureau Director Kenneth Prewitt
said, "As I have said many times, the Census Bureau is
committed to only one principle -- to provide the most
accurate, scientifically sound census possible in accordance
with the law.
"The Census Bureau career professionals will conduct the
census for 2000 that provides the nation apportionment
numbers that do not rely on statistical sampling." For
further information about Census 2000 Bulletins, contact J.
Paul Wyatt on 301-457-3052 (fax: 301-457-3670; e-mail:
pio(a)census.gov).
