Subject:         Census 2000 Initiative News Alert
   Date:         Thu, 1 Feb 2001 12:48:06 -0500
   From:        Census2000 <Census2000@ccmc.org>

February 1, 2001

 NEWS ALERT

UTAH CHALLENGES APPORTIONMENT IN COURT,
CITING OMISSION OF MORMON MISSIONARIES

Plus: Senate Confirms Evans To Be Commerce Secretary;
Count Question Resolution Process Outlined in Federal Register

After failing to pick up a fourth district in the post-Census 2000 congressional apportionment, the State of Utah filed a lawsuit challenging its loss of the 435th seat in the U.S. House of Representatives to North Carolina, which gained a 13th district based on the inclusion of members of the armed forces and federal civilian employees stationed abroad in the state population totals used for apportionment.

Utah claimed in its lawsuit, filed in federal district court, that the Census Bureau's failure to count more than 10,000 missionaries for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints serving in foreign countries at the time of the census was unconstitutional.   Governor Mike Leavitt said the state took legal action "to reclaim fairness and protect our constitutional right to representation."   The Bureau's decision to count military and federal civilian personnel overseas, but not other Americans temporarily living or working abroad, for apportionment purposes, was "arbitrary and capricious," the state contended.  Utah's Attorney General, Mark Shurtleff, said the exclusion of some U.S. citizens living overseas
"unconstitutionally diluted the voting power" of Utah residents.  All of Utah's members of Congress and Senators, as well as state legislative leaders, are also plaintiffs in the lawsuit.  North Carolina has asked to intervene in the case in support of the Census Bureau's position.

Utah wants the Census Bureau either to include missionaries living overseas in the census counts or drop the overseas military and federal employees from the state totals.  The state withdrew its request for an injunction to stop the Clerk of the U.S. House of Representatives from certifying the apportionment after the parties agreed to an expedited hearing of the case. A three-judge federal panel will hear the case in Denver on March 21.

Following the 1990 census, Massachusetts sued the Commerce Department when the inclusion of overseas military and federal government personnel in the apportionment counts shifted a congressional seat from Massachusetts to Washington.  The Supreme Court ruled that the Census Bureau had the authority to include this group of people and decide where they should be counted for apportionment purposes (Franklin v. Massachusetts, 505 U.S. 788, 1992).

Senate confirms Evans to be Secretary of Commerce: The U.S. Senate confirmed Donald L. Evans to head the Department of Commerce in the new Bush Administration.  The full Senate approved the nomination without dissent, by 'unanimous consent,' within hours after President George W. Bush's swearing-in on January 20.  A few days later, Secretary Evans addressed Census Bureau employees and toured the agency's headquarters in Suitland,
Maryland.

The confirmation followed a January 4th hearing of the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Technology at which several Senators questioned the nominee about the looming decision on whether the Census Bureau will release
statistically corrected population numbers to the states in March.  Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY), the senior Democrat on the House of Representatives Census Subcommittee, said she was disappointed that the Senate did not hold a second hearing to discuss the new Administration's position on statistical adjustment in more detail before confirming Mr. Evans for the Commerce post.

In a January 31 audio press briefing organized by the Census 2000 Initiative, the congresswoman again urged President Bush and Secretary Evans to let a committee of senior career professionals at the Census Bureau determine if correcting census numbers based on the Accuracy and Coverage Evaluation (A.C.E.) survey would produce more accurate data.  Larry Gonzalez of the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials (NALEO) echoed her comments, saying an undercount deprived Hispanic Americans of equal political representation and access to needed government services.  The new administration has not indicated publicly if it will abide by the committee's recommendation or if Commerce Department officials will make the decision on adjustment.

Former Census Bureau Director Kenneth Prewitt, who resigned when President
Bush took office, told reporters during the press briefing that the Census Bureau is unlikely to release uncorrected numbers before its evaluation of the corrected data is complete, unless it is ordered to do so by the Commerce Department.  Dr. Prewitt noted that a federal rule put in place last fall by then-Secretary of Commerce Norman Mineta gives the Census Bureau director final say over whether to release the adjusted numbers to the states for redistricting purposes.  The rule established the expert committee and requires that the panel's recommendation to the director be made public.  Under a provision of the Commerce Department's 1998 funding bill, the former director added, the Census Bureau must publish the raw numbers and corrected counts at the same time, if it decides to release census data derived in part through scientific sampling methods.
 
Census Bureau Deputy Director William Barron, a career civil servant and former deputy director of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, is serving as the agency's acting director.  The Commerce Department also named Lee Price, Deputy Under Secretary for Economic Affairs, as acting Under Secretary of the department's Economic and Statistics Administration (ESA), of which the
Census Bureau is a part.  Ms. LaVerne Collins, a career Census Bureau employee who has served in several senior positions, was appointed Acting Associate Director of Advertising and Communications; Joanne Caldwell is serving as Acting Chief of Congressional Affairs.  Political appointees traditionally hold these positions and step down when a new administration takes office.

State legislative update: The United States Supreme Court let stand a lower federal court decision delaying review of a Virginia law that prohibits the use of statistically corrected census numbers for congressional and state legislative redistricting.  A three-judge federal panel ruled last October that it was premature to assess the law's effect on minority voting rights until detailed Census 2000 data are released in March.

Virginia sued the U.S. Department of Justice last spring, seeking to bypass the department's review of any changes to the state's election laws, required under the Voting Rights Act.  Virginia asked the court to find that the Census Act and the U.S. Constitution bar the use of sampling methods to compile the census figures for congressional apportionment and redistricting.  The court did not rule on those issues, but instead agreed with the Justice Department that it was too soon to evaluate the law's effect.

Virginia is one of 16 states covered by section 5 of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, which requires Justice Department approval for any changes to election law because of past discrimination in election practices.  The state's Attorney General decided to by-pass the "pre-clearance" procedure and sought direct approval for the law in court.  A group of 15 cities and counties, led by the City of Los Angeles, joined the lawsuit in opposition to the Virginia law.

Census Monitoring Board activities: The Presidential Members of the Census
Monitoring Board released a study showing the consequences of the decision not to statistically correct the 1990 census on political representation for racial minorities.  Dr. Allan Lichtman, a professor at The American University and an expert on elections, conducted the review of the ten states with the largest undercount rates in the 1990 census.  Dr. Lichtman concluded that minority voter representation would have increased in 44 state legislative districts and one congressional district in the states studied if the 1990 census had been statistically adjusted to account for people missed.

The Presidential Members also released a study by Dr. Beth Osborne Daponte and Amelia Haviland, both of Carnegie Mellon University, on the undercount of infants in the 1990 census.  The authors compared birth, death, and school enrollment records with 1990 census data and concluded that 20 percent of infants (800,000 infants) were missed.  They analyzed the count of infants for all counties and the 20 largest cities in the nation.  The Board's Congressional Member co-chair, J. Kenneth Blackwell, disputed the study's findings.  He said the Census Bureau's own evaluation of the 1990 census showed a smaller undercount of children under the age of one.  The Bureau believes some families may have incorrectly reported the age of infants under the age of one in that count, due to confusing instructions on the form.  Mr. Blackwell said the study, "like others issued by the Presidential Board members, appears to present documentation to promote a political position they and others have previously reached."

The eight-member Census Monitoring Board was established in 1997 to monitor preparations for and implementation of the 2000 census.  The congressional Republican leadership, and President Clinton, in consultation with Democratic leaders in Congress, each appointed four members.  The Board will operate through September 2001.

The studies and related press releases are available through the Presidential Members' web site at www.cmbp.gov <http://www.cmbp.gov>.  Mr. Blackwell's statement can be found on the Congressional Members web site at www.cmbc.gov <http://www.cmbc.gov>. 

Census 2000 operations update: The Census Bureau issued a Federal Register notice outlining its plans for the Census 2000 Count Question Resolution (CQR) program.  The program, which will run from June 30, 2001, through September 30, 2003, is designed to assess and respond to challenges to Census 2000 housing unit and group quarters counts by local and Tribal governments.  The Census Bureau will evaluate challenges using information already collected; it will not recount any areas or collect additional information.  The Bureau also will correct verifiable mistakes in jurisdictional boundaries.  Any corrections made to housing unit and group quarters counts, and related population data, as a result of a successful CQR challenge will not be reflected in official Census 2000 reports, but the changes will be reflected in subsequent population estimates the Bureau issues between censuses.

The Federal Register notice is available through the Government Printing Office's web site at www.access.gpo.gov/su_docs/fedreg/frcont01.html <http://www.access.gpo.gov/su_docs/fedreg/frcont01.html>.  Written comments
on the proposal are due by March 23, 2001.

The Census Bureau also started sending Census 2000 maps to the states for
use in redistricting activities.  The release, part of the Census 2000 Redistricting Data Program, includes maps showing county blocks, voting district and state legislative district outlines, and census tract outlines.  All states will receive their maps by the end of February.  The maps will be publicly available through the Bureau's Internet-based American FactFinder (www.census.gov) by May.  The Bureau will begin releasing detailed population and housing unit counts to the states for redistricting in March.  The block-level counts will show population numbers by race, Hispanic origin, and voting age.

News from Congress: Congress continues to organize committees and subcommittees for the 107th Congress.  The Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs has jurisdiction over Census Bureau programs.  Sen. Fred Thompson (R-TN) will chair the committee; Sen. Joseph Lieberman (D-CT) is the
panel's senior Democrat.  In the House, Rep. Dan Burton (R-IN) will continue chairing the Committee on Government Reform, which oversees the census.
Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) remains the committee's senior Democrat.  Rep. Dan Miller (R-FL) and Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) will retain their positions
as chairman and ranking minority member, respectively, of the panel's Subcommittee on the Census.  Also in the House, Rep. Frank Wolf (R-VA) takes over from Rep. Harold Rogers (R-KY) as chair of the Appropriations Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, and State, The Judiciary, and Related
Agencies, which funds the Census Bureau and other Commerce Department statistical programs.  The Census 2000 Initiative will report on additional committee and subcommittee assignments relevant to Census Bureau activities as they become available.

Questions about the information contained in this News Alert may be directed to Terri Ann Lowenthal at 202/484-2270 or, by e-mail at mailto:terriann2k@aol.com .  For copies of previous News Alerts and other information, use our web site www.census2000.org <http://www.census2000.org>.  Please direct all requests to receive News Alerts, and all changes in address/phone/fax/e-mail, to the Census 2000 Initiative at mailto:census2000@ccmc.org or 202/326-8700. Please feel free to circulate this information to colleagues and other interested individuals.