ctpp-news June 1998

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Census 2000 News Alert

by ed c

Date: Fri, 26 Jun 1998 11:29:51 -0400 From: Keri Monihan <kmonihan(a)ccmc.org> Controversy Over Census Methods Continues As Appropriators Consider FY99 Funding House Census Chairman Questions Qualifications Of Census Bureau Director Nominee The House and Senate appropriations panels took their first steps this week toward crafting bills to fund the Census Bureau in the fiscal year starting on October 1, 1998. The Fiscal Year 1999 Commerce, Justice, State, and The Judiciary Appropriations bill was approved by the Senate's subcommittee and full appropriations panel while only the counterpart House subcommittee completed its work before legislators headed home for the July 4th break. The Senate committee allocated $848 million for 2000 census preparations, the amount requested by the President. Subcommittee Chairman Judd Gregg (R-NH) indicated at the June 23 subcommittee 'mark-up' that the final debate over the use of sampling methods would be put off until next year. He also criticized the Census Bureau's report to Congress earlier this year, which spelled out the Bureau's plan for taking a census without sampling. The House subcommittee that funds the Census Bureau, chaired by Rep. Harold Rogers (R-KY), allocated $956 million for the 2000 census, which includes $4 million for the Census Monitoring Board. However, only half of that amount would be available for the Census Bureau to spend through March 31, 1999. The remaining $476 million cannot be spent until the President, by March 15, formally requests the funds and gives a cost estimate for completion of the census. Congress then has until March 31 to pass legislation allowing the Bureau to spend the remaining funds. The bill does not specify what will happen if Congress and the President fail to agree on releasing the funds by that date. The subcommittee's senior Democrat, Rep. Alan Mollohan (D-WV), expressed "dismay" at the bill's provisions. He argued that it violated last year's agreement between congressional Republican leaders and the White House to put pressure on both sides to resolve the sampling issue by subjecting the entire appropriations bill to another funding vote in March, 1999. Rep. Mollohan said that the President would insist on upholding the agreed-upon procedure or push for a resolution of the sampling controversy this Fall. ------------- Census Bureau Director update: As expected, on June 23, the President nominated Dr. Kenneth Prewitt, president of the Social Science Research Council, to be the next head of the Census Bureau. The nomination will go before the Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs, chaired by Senator Fred Thompson (R-TN). Commerce Secretary William Daley called Dr. Prewitt "one of this nation's most distinguished social scientists and experienced executives and he called upon the Senate to consider the nomination quickly. Dr. Prewitt, speaking at a press conference announcing his selection, said it is "unfortunate that Census 2000 has become prey to partisan disagreements." He pledged to work closely with Congress to "establish in principle and in fact that the Census Bureau is a nonpartisan agency obligated by law and guided by professional traditions to present the most accurate statistics technically possible, at a reasonable cost." He did not indicate in his prepared remarks whether he supported the use of sampling in the census. In a statement on the House floor that evening, census oversight Chairman Dan Miller (R-FL) questioned Dr. Prewitt's qualifications for the position. He said that Dr. Prewitt received the nomination only because he met the President's "litmus test" of support for sampling, and suggested that the nominee did not have the management experience to "lead a huge organization at a time of crisis. ...[h]e ran a think tank, and that is it." Rep. Miller went on to say: "The Census Bureau needs a General Schwarzkopf, not a Professor Sherman Klunk, to save the census." In a separate written statement, the chairman said he hoped that if Dr. Prewitt is confirmed, he will "demonstrate some independence from the political handlers in the Clinton Administration." Rep. Miller also defended his subcommittee staff director, Thomas Hofeller, from charges made by some Members of Congress that Mr. Hofeller had injected racial politics into the debate over sampling. Rep. Danny Davis (D-IL), a member of the census subcommittee, called a quote by Mr. Hofeller in a recent column by David Broder (see June 22 News Alert) "reprehensible" and "race-laden" and he called upon Chairman Miller to repudiate the statement. Rep. Miller responded that Mr. Hofeller's quote was taken out of context and that his staff director had assisted minorities in gaining political representation through the redistricting process. ----------------- Census Monitoring Board update: The Census Monitoring Board will hold its second meeting on July 8. The location and time for the meeting have not been announced. The Board's co-chairs have appointed their respective top staffers. Fred Asbell, executive director for Republican co-chair Kenneth Blackwell, most recently has worked in the international telecommunications arena. He served in senior staff positions at the Department of Labor during the Reagan Administration and in Congress, and also has held several senior positions at the Republican National Committee and the Republican Congressional Campaign Committee. Mark Johnson, appointed by Democratic co-chair Tony Coelho, just completed a stint as U.S. Deputy Commissioner General at World Expo '98 in Lisbon, Portugal, where he also directed the American Pavilion under Commissioner General Coelho. He has worked in journalism and in Congress, and directed communications at the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee in the mid-1980s. -------------------- Legal update: A federal court in Virginia is set to hear oral arguments in a second case challenging the constitutionality of sampling in the census. A three-judge U.S. District Court panel will take up Glavin v. Clinton on August 7, at 10 a.m., at the federal courthouse in Roanoke, Virginia (Poff Federal Building, 210 Franklin Rd., S.W.). The lawsuit was filed in February by Matthew Glavin, president of the Atlanta-based Southeastern Legal Foundation, Rep. Bob Barr (R-GA), and other individual plaintiffs. Several counties have moved to join the sampling opponents in the case, while other cities, states, counties and Members of Congress have asked to intervene on the government's side. ----------------- Executive Branch activities: William G. Barron, Jr., deputy commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), has been named Deputy Under Secretary of Commerce for Economic Affairs, the number-two position in the Department's Economic and Statistics Administration which oversees the Census Bureau. Mr. Barron, who spent 30 years as a career civil servant at BLS, will focus on budget and management issues affecting the 2000 census. ------------------ The Press Beat: The Detroit Free Press (6/15/98), Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (6/14/98), and The Buffalo News (6/15/98) have published editorials in support of the Census Bureau's plan for the 2000 census. We encourage stakeholders to speak with journalists in their communities about the importance of an accurate and cost-effective census. 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 Keri Monihan at <kmonihan(a)ccmc.org> or 202/326-8728. Please feel free to circulate this information to colleagues and other interested individuals.

25 years, 10 months

Census 2000 Initiative News Alert

by ed c

Date: Mon, 22 Jun 1998 17:11:04 -0400 From: Keri Monihan <kmonihan(a)ccmc.org> Following is the text from the most recent Census 2000 News Alert, if you have any questions, please feel free to call me at 202/326-8728. President Set To Nominate Prewitt as Census Bureau Director Move Comes as Appropriators Begin Consideration Of Census Bureau Funding for FY '99 President Clinton is reportedly set to formally nominate Dr. Kenneth Prewitt, president of the New York-based Social Science Research Council, as head of the Census Bureau. Prewitt is a highly-regarded social scientist who formerly headed the National Opinion Research Center in Chicago and was instrumental in founding the Consortium of Social Science Associations (COSSA). It does not appear that he has spoken publicly on any issues surrounding the 2000 census. The director's position has been vacant since Dr. Martha F. Riche resigned in late January. Atlanta Regional Director James Holmes has been serving as Acting Director of the agency. In an article today in the Capitol Hill newspaper Roll Call, Rep. Dan Miller, chairman of the House census oversight panel, is quoted as saying that he feared Dr. Prewitt "is simply being used by the Clinton White House as yet another statistical shill for their beleaguered statistical estimation scheme that has brought the 2000 Census to the brink of disaster." The announcement of Dr. Prewitt's nomination is likely this week. Budget Hearings. The House and Senate funding panels are preparing to take initial action on the Census Bureau's budget bills before Congress heads home for its July 4th break at week's end. The Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice and State, The Judiciary and Related Agencies will "mark-up" the Fiscal Year 1999 (FY99) funding measure for programs under its jurisdiction on Tuesday, June 23, at 10 a.m. in room S-146, The Capitol. The House's counterpart subcommittee has set a tentative mark-up for June 24 (time and location to be announced). Appropriations panels rarely release details of their budget numbers before they meet. Census commentary: Two nationally syndicated columnists have weighed in on the controversy over the use of sampling in the census in recent weeks. George Will's column appeared in numerous newspapers, including The Washington Post on June 14 under the headline "Would You Buy A Used Census From This Prez?" In it, Mr. Will accused President Clinton of disregarding the Constitution's requirement of "actually locating actual people" and said that "[t]he central problem is the political temptations in sampling." He quotes David Murray, head of research for the Statistical Assessment Service and a member of the new Census Monitoring Board, as saying: "The ability to 'create' or 'eliminate' millions of strategically placed citizens with the stroke of a pen introduces a potent and disturbing new political weapon." Dr. Murray is a former anthropology professor. David Broder's column, entitled "Playing Hardball On The Census," ran in The Washington Post on June 21. Mr. Broder suggested that sampling opponents may have an easier time prohibiting the Bureau from using statistical methods because of provisions in this year's funding bill that the President accepted. Mr. Broder called the hearing on the lawsuit filed by Speaker Newt Gingrich "a near disaster" for the Administration, noting that the two Republican-appointed judges on the three-judge district court panel "riddled the Justice Department attorney with skeptical questions." He also quoted Thomas Hofeller, staff director of the House census subcommittee, as saying: "Someone should remind Bill Daley [the secretary of commerce and overseer of the Census Bureau] that if he counts people the way he wants to, his brother [Chicago Mayor Richard Daley] could find himself trying to run a majority-minority city." Mr. Broder predicted that the Administration might have to appeal an adverse decision in the lower court on the constitutional issue to the Supreme Court. Stakeholder activities: The 2000 Census Advisory Committee to the Secretary of Commerce held its quarterly meeting at the Census Bureau's Suitland, MD, headquarters on June 11 and 12. The committee is drafting a final report to the Secretary that will be delivered before the panel sunsets at the end of the year. The Secretary has the authority to reconstitute the panel and appoint new members. Census Bureau staff discussed plans to distribute data from the 2000 census through its new Data Access and Dissemination System (DADS). The Bureau hopes to rely more heavily on electronic distribution of information, thereby reducing the amount of paper products available. However several Advisory Committee members expressed concern that the new system would limit access for many data users who cannot afford to use the Internet on a regular basis. Congressional staff representing Republican and Democratic members of the House census oversight subcommittee also spoke to the committee. Tom Hofeller, the panel's staff director, disagreed with concerns expressed by some committee members and outside observers that subcommittee Chairman Dan Miller (R-FL) and his staff were engaging in "[Census] Bureau bashing," saying that while they clearly had a "policy disagreement," he had the "highest respect" for the Bureau's employees. The American Legion's representative on the panel said that any suggestions that census numbers could be manipulated for political purposes implied that Bureau staff would be involved or at least condone such an action, a conclusion he believed was wrong and unfair. The American Legion has not taken a position on the use of sampling methods but is working with the Bureau to help promote census participation. Mr. Hofeller and his staff colleagues have visited both the Sacramento, CA, and Columbia, SC, census dress rehearsal sites. Mr. Hofeller described the visits as "very illuminating" and noted several operational concerns including a "cookie cutter approach" to paid advertising and outreach, some failures to recruit enumerators indigenous to each neighborhood (particularly when language barriers exist), and the pace and accuracy of address list development efforts. He also suggested that the Census Bureau is not as eager to plan for a "non-sampling census," although Congress directed preparations for two kinds of censuses in this year's funding bill. Important housekeeping notes: Census 2000 Initiative project consultant TerriAnn Lowenthal will have new telephone and fax numbers, effective June 25. Please make a note of the following numbers: (tel) 202/484-2270; (fax) 202/554-9851. Also, please direct all requests to receive our News Alerts, as well as any change of address, phone or fax, or e-mail address, to Keri Monihan at the Communications Consortium Media Center, at <kmonihan(a)ccmc.org>, or 202/326-8728. Questions about the information contained in this News Alert may be directed to TerriAnn Lowenthal at (202) 434-8756 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 Keri Monihan at <kmonihan(a)ccmc.org> or 202/326-8728. Please feel free to circulate this information to colleagues and other interested individuals.

25 years, 10 months

Personal Travel: The Long and Short of It

by Murakami, Elaine <FHWA>

Call for Papers Personal Travel: The Long and Short of It June 28-July 1, 1999 Watergate Hotel Washington, DC TRB - National Data Task Force Alan Pisarski, Chair Nationwide Personal Transportation Survey (NPTS) and the American Travel Survey (ATS), both conducted by the U.S. Department of Transportation, together provide a complete description of personal travel by residents of the United States. A conference is now scheduled for June of 1999. This is the first time the results of both surveys will be presented together in a joint conference. At this conference, both federally commissioned papers and papers accepted from this Call will be presented. Papers will be reviewed by a conference steering committee, chaired by Alan Pisarski. We are looking for papers using one or both of the personal travel surveys for: * economic impacts of transportation, linking the NPTS and the ATS to the Bureau of Labor Statistics Consumer Expenditure Survey, the HUD American Housing Survey, or other national data * understanding the link between land use and transportation, such as the effect of household density and/or the mix of land-use types, on the amount and type of travel (including non-motorized) * understanding the interplay of social and demographic characteristics and travel behavior, including life cycle and household composition, and travel by special segments of the population such as elderly and low-income. * issues important to federal policy in transportation, energy, and the environment, state-wide and metropolitan transportation planning, such as factors effecting the amount of time spent in travel, mode choice, and trip length characteristics * methodological issues in personal travel surveys emphasizing the comparison and use of data from different surveys A one-page abstract of the paper topic is due Sept. 8, 1998. Authors will be notified within 30 days of receipt of the abstracts whether the paper will be accepted. Papers are due February 15, 1999. To submit abstracts or for further information, contact: Nancy McGuckin Federal Highway Administration HPM-40 Washington, DC 20590 (202) 366-0160 phone (202) 366-7742 fax Nancy.McGuckin(a)fhwa.dot.gov OR Lee Giesbrecht Bureau of Transportation Statistics K-20 400 7th St SW Washington, DC 20590 202-366-0649 phone 202-366-3640 FAX Lee.Giesbrecht(a)bts.gov

25 years, 10 months

Request for articles : Second issue UMP - EURO

by Cindy Kerckhoffs

"I am sorry for crossed postings" Dear Urban Mobility Professional, As you are aware we have started an electronic magazine: The Urban Mobility Professional (UMP). The first issue of this magazine discussed the Y2K problem and has been send to our users at the end of May (http://www.mobility-net.com/ump/issue1.htm). We have had a lot of positive reactions from our members and we were very impressed by the interest shown by our urban mobility professionals. The second issue of the magazine will discuss information regarding the EURO. Again I would like to ask you as an Urban Mobility professional if you are interested to publish your views/information regarding the EURO in the upcoming issue of The Urban Mobility Professional. Documents received will be listed in The UMP and/or added to the Urban Mobility Library. You can send the information/articles by e-mail to C.Kerckhoffs@mobility-net. I am looking forward to publish your information in our second issue of our magazine. Best regards, Cindy Kerckhoffs Editor / Information Manager Urban Mobility Network P.s. I welcome any requests concerning future issues/topics. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------------------ Subscribe yourself to our FREE electronic magazine: http://www.mobility-net.com/ump ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------------------

25 years, 10 months

Census 2000 News Alert

by ed c

Date: Thu, 11 Jun 1998 From: Keri Monihan <kmonihan(a)ccmc.org> Following is the copy from the most recent Census 2000 News Alert - If you have any problems with the transmission, please call me at 202/326-8728. Federal Court Hears Arguments In Gingrich Lawsuit Against Census Sampling A three-judge U.S. District Court panel heard oral arguments today before a packed courtroom in the case filed by House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-GA) challenging the constitutionality and legality of sampling in the census. District of Columbia Circuit Court Judge Douglas Ginsburg was joined by District Court Judges Royce C. Lamberth and Ricardo Urbina in presiding over U.S. House of Representatives v. U.S. Department of Commerce, the first of two lawsuits asserting that the Constitution and the Census Act (Title 13, United States Code) prohibit sampling in the census. The Department of Justice (DOJ) argued the case for the Commerce Department, first suggesting that the House did not have standing to bring the lawsuit because the current Congress (105th) would not be harmed by a census taken in 2000 and that the case was not ripe for judicial consideration because the House could still direct census methods through legislation. Judge Lamberth appeared skeptical of those arguments, pointing out that if the controversy over sampling was not settled soon, the decision on which methods to use would be irreversible and any potential harm to the plaintiffs caused by sampling was therefore inevitable if the Census Bureau proceeded with its plan. Lawyers for the House argued that Congress and the Administration had reached an impasse on the question of whether sampling can be used in the census, making it necessary for the courts to step in, an argument that Judge Lamberth appeared to embrace. Plaintiff's lawyers noted that the Bureau and the General Accounting Office believed that a decision on the census design should be made very soon. Both sides also presented their arguments on the constitutionality and legality of sampling methods. The government said that the Constitution contemplates the most accurate census possible, while the House's lawyers argued that the term "enumeration" in Article I, section 2, meant to count one by one, not to estimate. Judges Ginsburg and Lamberth seemed most concerned with plaintiff's suggestion that sampling methods are open to political manipulation. The government noted in response that traditional counting methods also can be manipulated to achieve a certain outcome. Plaintiff's lawyers also argued that the Census Act does not allow sampling to produce the census counts used to apportion the House of Representatives. They pointed to section 195 of the Census Act, which states that except for purposes of apportionment, the Census Bureau "shall" use sampling methods whenever possible. The government's attorney's countered that section 141 of the Act authorizes the Secretary of Commerce to determine how the census will be taken, including the use of sampling. They suggested that when Congress amended both sections in 1976, it intended to encourage the use of sampling whenever possible in data collection activities but leave the decision on whether to use sampling in the decennial census to the Secretary. The court also heard brief arguments in support of the government's position from intervening parties: the City of Los Angeles on behalf of 19 other cities, counties, and states, and 19 Members of Congress; House Minority Leader Richard Gephardt and several other Democratic representatives; a coalition of Asian American and Hispanic civic organizations; and the California State Legislature. In a written statement, House census subcommittee Chairman Dan Miller (R-FL), referring to arguments that the case was not ready for judicial intervention, said he was troubled that "the President is using taxpayer money to pay government lawyers to try to get the case dismissed." Rep. Miller asked: "Is he [the President] afraid that sampling will be found unconstitutional?" The lawsuit filed by the House of Representatives, at the direction of Speaker Gingrich, as well as the outside law firm hired to argue the case, are also being paid for with taxpayer funds. The government argued the merits of the case as well as pursuing arguments on whether the Constitution permits this type of case to be heard. Also in a written statement, Citizens for an Honest Count Coalition, a group of conservative organizations opposed to sampling, urged the court to rule quickly "before billions of dollars are wasted on a phony census." In an audio press conference yesterday hosted by the Census 2000 Initiative, constitutional scholar and Harvard law professor Laurence Tribe said that neither the Constitution nor the law prohibited sampling. Calling the lawsuit one of "the Emperor has no clothes," Prof. Tribe said that it wouldn't make sense for the framers of the Constitution to say the Congress should direct how the census will be taken and then limit those methods. Article I, section 2, says in relevant part that "the actual Enumeration shall be made [every ten years] in such Manner as they [Congress] shall by Law direct." University of Wisconsin history professor Margo Anderson, author of "The American Census," said that the Founding Fathers sought a way to depoliticize the process of allocating seats in Congress among the states and settled on a measurement of the population, but that they had not discussions about the methods for doing so. The other lawsuit, Glavin v. Clinton, will be heard by a three-judge panel in the Eastern District of Virginia (Alexandria) later this summer. In the Census Bureau's funding bill for this year, Congress directed that the courts expedite consideration of the cases, with any appeal going directly to the Supreme Court. HOUSEKEEPING NOTE: The Census 2000 Initiative Web site is nearing completion. Please forward any suggestions for hyper-links you think should be included to: Henry Griggs at hgriggs(a)ccmc.org. Questions about the information contained in this News Alert may be directed to TerriAnn Lowenthal at (202) 434-8756 or, by e-mail, at <terriann2k(a)aol.com>. Please feel free to circulate this information to colleagues and other interested individuals.

25 years, 10 months

GAO dress rehearsal report

by ed c

this report, "2000 Census: Preparations for Dress Rehearsal Leave Many Unanswered Questions (Chapter Report, 03/26/98, GAO/GGD-98-74)" has been out since March but i just got an opportunity to read it. http://www.gao.gov/monthly.list/march/mar9810.htm

25 years, 10 months

JOIN THE URBAN MOBILITY FORUM / MAILINGLIST: PRESENT DISCUSSION INVOLVES YEAR 2000 PROBLEM

by Cindy Kerckhoffs

----------- Sorry for crossed essages -------------- Dear Urban Mobility Professional, As you are aware I have been doing research regarding the Y2K problem in relation to the mobility branch. In the Urban Mobility professional (UMP: http://www.mobility-net.com/ump/issue1.htm) I already mentioned that so far little attention has been given to the Y2K problem in relation to Urban Mobility which means that a lot of companies/organizations are not Year 2000 compliant. The articles published in the UMP confirm this statement. For example the article written by Martyn Emery about the study on the infrastructure robustness of the Greater London Area in the context of the Year 2000 Computing Crisis, in which he concluded that the Greater London Area scored a 49 out of 100 in their scale for Year 2000 readiness. It is therefore that I explicitly ask you as being an Urban Mobility Professional, to subscribe and participate in the Y2K Forum-discussion (http://www.mobility-net.com/forum/) (NEW: Mailinglist functionality included) and maybe contradict the fears Mr Martin Bangemann told a news conference: A lot of people don't seem to be worrying their pretty heads about it" (2000-problem), . (Reuters, February 25, 1998). I am looking forward to see your reactions. Cindy Kerckhoffs

25 years, 10 months

Scientific American Article on Sampling

by Chuck Purvis (MTC)

The following is the full text of an article on Census 2000 Sampling from the July 1998 issue of Scientific American. ************************************************************** http://www.sciam.com:80/1998/0798issue/0798infocus.html ************************************************************** Statistical Uncertainty Researchers warn that continued debate over the 2000 census could doom it to failure Censuses in the U.S. have always seemed straightforward_it's just a head count, right?_and have always proved, in practice, to be just the opposite: logistically complex, politically contentious and statistically inaccurate. Clerks were still tabulating the results of the 1880 census eight years later. The 1920 count revealed such a dramatic shift in population from farms to cities that Congress refused to honor the results. And a mistake in doling out electoral college seats based on the 1870 census handed Rutherford B. Hayes the presidency when Samuel J. Tilden should in fact have been awarded the most votes. But after 1940 the accuracy of the census at least improved each decade, so that only 1.2 percent of the population slipped past the enumerators in 1980, according to an independent demographic analysis. That trend toward increasing accuracy reversed in 1990, however. The Census Bureau paid 25 percent more per home to count people than it had in 1980, and its hundreds of thousands of workers made repeated attempts to collect information on every person in every house_what is called a full enumeration. Nevertheless, the number of residents left off the rolls for their neighborhood rose to 15 million, while 11 million were counted where they should not have been. The net undercount of four million amounted to 1.8 percent of the populace. Less than 2 percent might be an acceptable margin of error were it not that some groups of people were missed more than others. A quality-check survey found that blacks, for example, were undercounted by 4.4 percent; rural renters, by 5.9 percent. Because census data are put to so many important uses_from redrawing voting districts and siting schools to distributing congressional seats and divvying up some $150 billion in annual federal spending_all agree that this is a problem. In response, Congress unanimously passed a bill in 1991 commissioning the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) to study ways to reduce cost and error in the census. The expert panel arrived at an unequivocal conclusion: the only way to reduce the undercount of all racial groups to acceptable levels at an acceptable cost is to introduce scientific sampling into the April 1, 2000, census and to give up the goal of accounting directly for every individual. Other expert groups, including a special Department of Commerce task force, two other NAS panels, the General Accounting Office and both statisticians' and sociologists' professional societies, have since added their strong endorsement of a census that incorporates random sampling of some kind. After some waffling, the Census Bureau finally settled last year on a plan to use two kinds of surveys. The first will begin after most people have mailed back the census forms sent to every household. Simulations predict that perhaps one third of the population will neglect to fill out a form_more in some census tracts (clusters of adjacent blocks, housing 2,000 to 7,000 people) than in others, of course. To calculate the remainder of the population, census workers will visit enough randomly selected homes to ensure that at least 90 percent of the households in each tract are accounted for directly. So if only 600 out of 1,000 homes in a given tract fill out forms, enumerators will knock on the doors of random nonrespondents until they add another 300 to the tally. The number of denizens in the remaining 100 houses can then be determined by extrapolation, explains Howard R. Hogan, who leads the statistical design of the census. After the initial count is nearly complete, a second wave of census takers will fan out across the country to conduct a much smaller quality-control survey of 750,000 homes. Armed with a more meticulous (and much more expensive) list of addresses than the census used, this so-called integrated coverage measurement (ICM) will be used to gauge how many people in each socioeconomic strata were overcounted or undercounted in the first stage. The results will be used to inflate or deflate the counts for each group in order to arrive at final census figures that are closer to the true population in each region. "We endorsed the use of sampling [in the first stage] for two reasons," reports James Trussell, director of population research at Princeton University and a member of two NAS panels on the census. "It saves money, and it at least offers the potential for increased accuracy, because you could use a smaller, much better trained force of enumerators." The Census Bureau puts the cost of the recommended, statistics-based plan at about $4 billion. A traditional full enumeration, it estimates, would cost up to $800 million more. The ICM survey is important, says Alan M. Zaslavsky, a statistician at Harvard Medical School, because it will reduce the lopsided undercounting of certain minorities. "If we did a traditional enumeration," he comments, "then we would in effect be saying one more time that it is okay to undercount blacks by 3 or 4 percent_we've done it in the past, and we'll do it again." Republican leaders in Congress do not like the answers given by such experts. Two representatives and their advocates, including House Speaker Newt Gingrich, filed suits to force the census takers to attempt to enumerate everyone. Oral arguments in one trial were set for June; the cases may not be decided until 1999. The Republicans' main concern, explains Liz Podhoretz, an aide to the House subcommittee on the census, is "that the ICM is five times bigger than the [quality-check survey performed] in 1990, and they plan to do it in half the time with less qualified people. And it disturbs them that statisticians could delete a person's census data" to adjust for overcounted socioeconomic groups. Although the great majority of researchers support the new census plan, there are several well-respected dissenters. "I think the 2000 design is going to have more error than the 1990 design," says David A. Freedman of the University of California at Berkeley. The errors to worry about, he argues, are not the well-understood errors introduced by sampling but systematic mistakes made in collecting and processing the data. As an example, Freedman points out that a computer coding error made in the quality check during the last census would have erased one million people from the country and erroneously moved a congressional seat from Pennsylvania to Arizona had the survey data been used to correct the census. That mistake was not caught until after the results were presented to Congress. "Small mistakes can have large effects on total counts," adds Kenneth W. Wachter, another Berkeley statistician. "There are ways to improve the accuracy without sampling," Podhoretz asserts. "Simplifying the form and offering it in several languages, as is planned, should help. They should use [presumably more familiar] postal workers as enumerators. They should use administrative records, such as welfare rolls." "That shows appalling ignorance," Trussell retorts. "Our first report addressed that argument head-on and concluded that you cannot get there by doing it the old way. You're just wasting a lot of money." Representative Dan Miller of Florida was planning to introduce a bill in June that would make it illegal to delete any nonduplicated census form from the count. Such a restriction would derail the census, Trussell warns. "The idea behind sampling is not to eliminate anybody but to arrive at the best estimate of what the actual population is. Surely the goal is not just to count as many people as possible?" As the debate drags on, the brinkmanship is making statisticians nervous. Podhoretz predicts that "some kind of a showdown is likely next spring." That may be too late. "You don't want to redesign a census at the last minute," Freedman says. "I think the two sides should just agree to flip a coin," Trussell says. "To think next year about what we're going to do is madness." Wachter concurs: "We must not let the battle over sampling methods destroy the whole census." Otherwise April 1, 2000, may make all involved look like April fools. --W. Wayt Gibbs in San Francisco ****************************************************************

25 years, 10 months

Census News Alert 2000

by ed c

Date: Mon, 8 Jun 1998 12:29:33 -0400 From: Keri Monihan <kmonihan(a)ccmc.org> June 8, 1998 NEWS ALERT Census Monitoring Board Sets Ground Rules, Divides Money, In Effort To Establish Bipartisan Role Sampling Opponents Criticize President's Houston Census Event The Census Monitoring Board, established in a funding bill last fall as part of the so-called compromise agreement over the use of sampling in the census, held its first meeting on June 3 in a House of Representatives meeting room. All eight Board members gave brief opening remarks, with some suggesting that they were skeptical of the Census Bureau's plan to supplement traditional counting methods with statistical sampling and others stating that the census could not be improved without adding new methods. The Board discussed administrative matters for most of the session, deciding how to divvy up its annual $4 million budget, hire staff, and keep track of spending. Board members agreed to set aside $1 million for joint professional staff and projects, with the remaining funds divided equally between the President's appointees and those appointed by the Republican congressional leadership. They put off adopting rules for how the joint funds would be spent but agreed in principle that all members would keep the Board informed about the substance and purpose of projects undertaken independently by either side. The Board also adopted a recommendation by Republican co-chair Kenneth Blackwell to let the Government Printing Office (GPO) handle the Board's accounting after agreeing to a request by Democratic co-chair Tony Coelho that information about expenditures be subject to the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). (As an agency of the Legislative Branch, GPO is not subject to FOIA by law. The law creating the Board had designated the General Services Administration as the fiscal agent; GSA is subject to FOIA.) Board members were sworn in as official Census Bureau employees, giving them access to confidential information collected by the Bureau. In his opening remarks, Mr. Blackwell said that he had tried to meet with Acting Census Bureau Director James Holmes earlier that day but had been rebuffed. Mr. Blackwell said the encounter did not bode well for establishing a cooperative relationship with the Bureau. Presidentially-appointed Board member Everett Ehrlich responded that Mr. Holmes had received the meeting request only two days before and had tried to notify Mr. Blackwell that he could not be available due to previous commitments. The Board has set July 8 as the tentative date for its next meeting. Future meetings will be announced in the Federal Register and open to the public unless the Board votes to close the meeting. Administration activities: President Clinton made his first extended public comments about the 2000 census on June 2, visiting the Magnolia Multi-Service Center WIC facility in Houston, TX, and participating in a roundtable discussion with local civic, elected and religious leaders. Roundtable participants discussed the importance of an accurate census to transportation, housing, health and child care, rural development, education, and other policies and programs. Commerce Deputy Secretary Robert Mallett, Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY), co-chair of the congressional census caucus, and Rep. Tom Sawyer (D-OH), former chairman of the House census oversight subcommittee, accompanied the President to Houston. The President said he wanted "[to] put a human face on the census and its consequences" and that "an inaccurate census distorts our understanding of the needs of our people [and] diminishes the quality of life not only for them, but for all the rest of us as well." He said the Census Bureau must use "the most up-to-date, scientific, cost-effective methods" to take an accurate census. "This is not a political issue, this is an American issue," Clinton said, noting that it was "unfortunate" that some in Congress oppose the use of sampling to count the population. The President acknowledged the difficulty in explaining why sampling can help produce a more accurate count to the general public. Rep. Dan Miller (R-FL), chairman of the House Subcommittee on the Census, and Rep. John Boehner (R-OH), head of the House Republican Conference, both issued written statements in response to the President's Houston remarks. Rep. Miller accused the President of "peddling statistical snake-oil." "We've heard enough of his 'political' science. Where is the 'empirical' science?" Rep. Miller asked. Rep. Boehner also charged the President with politicizing the census and said that sampling "corrupts a basic sense of fairness by treating people as numbers that can be estimated, rather than individuals who have a right to be counted." Race and ethnicity update: The Census Bureau's Advisory Committees held a joint meeting on June 3 to discuss the development of guidelines for tabulating multiple responses to the race question in the 2000 census and other Federal data collection activities. Census Bureau staff presented several guideline options, noting that there were 63 possible combinations of reporting responses to the race question, including the six individual categories established by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). Tabulation options include "collapsing" the information into fewer categories for some combinations; reassigning multiple responses, either randomly or according to predetermined "priorities," to the original, individual categories; and reporting all combinations with each race identified in the combination, producing totals that exceed 100 percent. Advisory Committee participants raised several issues for further consideration and research, including maintaining the comparability of data over time, identification of households (as opposed to individuals) by race, and protecting confidentiality at the smaller geographic levels, particularly when demographic or economic characteristics are tabulated by race. An example of the latter problem would be reporting the number of households identified as Black/Asian/White with incomes under $25,000 for a group of census blocks; the incidence of these combined characteristics may be too small to protect the privacy of respondents. Only 15 racial categories will be reported for this year's Census Dress Rehearsal while the Bureau and a Federal interagency task force continue their research. OMB expects to publish final tabulation guidelines by next winter. Legal update: A three-judge panel of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia will hear oral arguments in the case of U.S. House of Representatives v. U.S. Department of Commerce on Thursday, June 11, beginning at 10:00 a.m. The Federal courthouse is located at 3rd Street and Constitution Avenue, N.W. Los Angeles City Attorney James Hahn and several other parties that have joined the lawsuit in support of the Census Bureau's 2000 census plan will hold a press conference at 9:30 a.m. on the steps of the courthouse to discuss the key issues in the case, which centers around the constitutionality of using sampling in the census. Census preparations: The Census Bureau has chosen its sites for the data capture centers, where millions of questionnaires will be processed during the 2000 census. The sites are Baltimore County, MD; Pamona, CA; and Phoenix, CA. Census forms will also be processed at the Bureau's permanent data capture facility in Jeffersonville, IN. The facilities will be built and operated by TRW, which was awarded the contract earlier this year. TRW also will recruit and train temporary workers to staff the facilities. Stakeholder activities: The 2000 Census Advisory Committee to the Secretary of Commerce will hold its quarterly meeting on June 11 - 12, at the Francis Amasa Walker Conference Center, Bureau of the Census, 4700 Silver Hill Road, Suitland, MD, beginning at 8:45 a.m. each day. Questions about the information contained in this News Alert may be directed to TerriAnn Lowenthal at (202) 434-8756 or, by e-mail, at <terriann2k(a)aol.com>. Please feel free to circulate this information to colleagues and other interested individuals.

25 years, 10 months

Census 2000 News

by ed c

Subject: Census 2000 News Alert Date: Mon, 1 Jun 1998 14:50:50 -0400 From: Keri Monihan <kmonihan(a)ccmc.org> Following is the copy from the most recent Census 2000 News Alert. If you have any problems, please call me at 202/326-8728. June 1, 1998 NEWS ALERT D.C. Court Lets Los Angeles, Other Cities Join Census Lawsuit Census Monitoring Board Set To Meet A federal court has ruled that the City of Los Angeles, 19 other states, cities, and counties, and 19 Members of Congress may officially join the lawsuit brought by House Speaker Newt Gingrich to prevent the use of sampling in the 2000 census. Los Angeles had sought to intervene in U.S. House of Representatives v. U.S. Department of Commerce in support of the Census Bureau's 2000 census plan. As "intervenor-defendants," Los Angeles and the other stakeholder parties argue that the Constitution contemplates an accurate census, not a particular method for achieving the population count. Oral arguments before a special three-judge panel of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia will be heard on June 11, beginning at 10:00 a.m. Census Monitoring Board update: The Census Monitoring Board, established in the Census Bureau's current year funding bill, will hold its first meeting on Wednesday, June 3, at 2:00 p.m., in Room 2203 Rayburn House Office Building. The meeting is open to the public. Funding update: House appropriators are ready to start drafting the 13 funding bills that will keep Federal agencies running in Fiscal Year 1999 (FY99), which begins on October 1. Before heading home for the Memorial Day break, the Committee on Appropriations divided up $532.8 billion in discretionary funds that will be available for Federal programs next year. The Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, State, and The Judiciary and Related Agencies, which covers the Census Bureau, received $32.34 billion, almost $200 million more than its counterpart Senate panel but still $1.04 billion less than the Administration requested. The Senate subcommittee will divide $32.16 billion among the diverse programs in the Departments of Commerce, Justice, and State and several other independent agencies, as well as the Federal judiciary. The Administration requested $848 million for 2000 census activities in FY99. Administration activities: President Clinton will shine a spotlight on the importance of an accurate census when he visits Houston, Texas, tomorrow. The President will participate in a roundtable discussion on key census issues with local political and civic leaders. Important administrative note: Census 2000 Initiative project consultant TerriAnn Lowenthal has a new e-mail address, effective immediately. You may now direct questions to TerriAnn at <terriann2K(a)aol.com>. Also, effective June 26, TerriAnn can be reached at a new work number, 202/484-2270. We'll remind you of this change as the date approaches. Questions about the information contained in this News Alert may be directed to TerriAnn Lowenthal at (202) 434-8756 or, by e-mail, at <terriann2K(a)aol.com>. Please feel free to circulate this information to colleagues and other interested individuals.

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ctpp-news June 1998