From: census2000(a)ccmc.org
Budget Inaction Delays American Community Survey Launch; Census Bureau
Will Release Adjusted 2000 Numbers Plus: General Accounting Office
Reviews ACS Methods; New ACS Data Released; A Look Ahead At Census
Oversight In The 108th Congress; and more.
The Census Bureau will not launch its proposed American Community Survey
(ACS) nationwide as planned in 2003 after Congress failed to enact new
funding levels for most federal agencies before adjourning for the
year. The lack of an appropriations bill for the fiscal year that
started October 1st leaves the bureau operating at fiscal year 2002
spending levels at least until January 11, when a temporary funding
measure (called a Continuing Resolution) expires.
When the 108th Congress convenes on January 7, legislators could take up
unfinished fiscal year 2003 (FY03) spending measures or simply extend
the Continuing Resolution, leaving most agencies with no funding
increase over last years levels. Traditionally, the Presidents federal
budget request for the next fiscal year arrives on Capitol Hill in early
February, raising the specter that Congress will be considering FY03 and
FY04 allocations at the same time.
Nationwide implementation of the ACS in FY03 would have required $124
million, more than double last years budget of roughly $60 million.
Instead, the Census Bureau will continue collecting data in 31 test
sites and from a national sample of 700,000 housing units called the
Supplementary Survey. The House of Representatives Appropriations
Committee did not consider a Fiscal Year 2003 Commerce, Justice, and
State, The Judiciary and Related Agencies funding bill, which includes
the Census Bureau. The Senate Appropriations Committee approved its
version of the Commerce measure in July, but the full Senate did not
take up the bill. S. 2778 did not include the funding increase for the
ACS that the Administration had requested.
Despite the bleak funding outlook for the ACS in the near term,
stakeholders continued to advocate for full funding and nationwide
implementation of the program. Groups recently expressing support for
the ACS include the National Association of Towns and Townships,
National Conference of State Legislatures, and the Congressional Black
Caucus.
Ninth Circuit Ruling To Stand In Case Seeking Adjusted Numbers: The
Census Bureau will publicly release statistically adjusted Census 2000
population numbers after the U.S. Department of Justice decided not to
appeal an October 8th court ruling in a Freedom of Information Act
(FOIA) case. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit found in
Margaret Carter and Susan Castillo v. United States Department of
Commerce (No. 02-35161) that the adjusted data were not predecisional
and did not fall under the deliberative privilege exception to the
FOIA.
The three-judge appeals panel unanimously affirmed an Oregon federal
judges ruling that the Commerce Department could not withhold the
adjusted numbers by claiming that the data were protected by a FOIA
exemption for information that is part of the decision-making process.
State Senators Margaret Carter (D-Portland) and Susan Castillo
(D-Eugene) had argued that the adjusted numbers were the subject of
the Secretarys March 2001 decision not to adjust the census, and
therefore were a final agency product subject to release under FOIA.
Their FOIA request sought block level census data, adjusted based on the
2000 Accuracy and Coverage Evaluation (A.C.E. survey), for the entire
country.
In rejecting the Commerce Departments arguments, the Ninth Circuit said
the deliberative process privilege ensures that agencies are not forced
to operate in a fishbowl and that FOIA requests do not discourage
candid discussion within the agency. The court pointed to the lower
courts finding that release of adjusted population numbers by
themselves would not reveal any protected decision-making process, and
noted that the Census Bureau has already disclosed the method and
procedures used to generate the adjusted data in 2000, as well as the
factors it considered important in deciding which data to release as the
official census numbers.
The court relied heavily on its ruling ten years ago in Assembly of
California v. United States Department of Commerce, 968 F.2d 916 (9th
Cir. 1992), in which California legislators successfully sued for
release of its adjusted census numbers under the Freedom of Information
Act after the Commerce Secretary decided against using the data for any
official purpose. In the Census 2000 case, Circuit Court Judge Alfred T.
Goodwin, who authored the opinion, said the Oregon district courts
finding that the adjusted data did not meet the standards of the FOIAs
deliberative process privilege was supported by the record and in
accordance with binding Ninth Circuit law.
After the Ninth Circuit issued its ruling, several census stakeholder
organizations urged Attorney General John Ashcroft not to appeal the
decision, noting the clear and consistent judicial guidance that FOIA
does not shield adjusted census numbers from public scrutiny. Public
release of the A.C.E.-adjusted data would give local overnments,
community planners, and researchers a deeper understanding of Census
2000 results, and advance debate over the most effective ways to improve
accuracy and quality in the 2010 census, the organizations wrote in an
October 25th letter. (A copy of the letter is available on the Census
2000 Initiative web site at www.census2000.org.)
The Ninth Circuits ruling and public release of the data do not compel
any official use of the adjusted numbers. Rep. Dave Weldon (R-FL),
chairman of the Subcommittee on Civil Service, Census and Agency
Organization, told the Associated Press that use of the adjusted numbers
would be as flawed as the data itself. Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY),
former ranking member on the House census oversight subcommittee, called
the resolution of the case a victory for open government. Now that
these data will be make available, the public and scientists can finally
judge for themselves which data was more accurate, the congresswoman
said in a written statement. In 2001, the Secretary of Commerce and the
Census Bureau concluded that the A.C.E.-adjusted numbers were not
sufficiently reliable for congressional redistricting and allocating
federal program funds. Those decisions, however, do not preclude state
and local governments from using adjusted census data for their own
redistricting or program purposes.
The Justice Department did not explain its reasons for not appealing the
case to the U.S. Supreme Court. The Census Bureau has not announced a
schedule for release of the adjusted numbers.
Other Legal News: A week before issuing its opinion in the FOIA case,
the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit upheld, by a 2 1 vote,
a lower courts dismissal of a case filed by the City of Los Angeles and
other municipalities, seeking to overturn the decision not to adjust the
2000 census. Los Angeles challenged the legality of Commerce Secretary
Donald Evans decision to release only unadjusted census data for
ongressional redistricting and federal program formulas. In April 2001,
U.S. District Court Judge Gary Feess ruled that the Secretary based his
decision on sufficient evidence that the raw census numbers were the
most accurate available, thereby meeting the objectives of the Census
Act (title 13, United States Code). Los Angeles had asked the Ninth
Circuit to review the dismissal of its claim; it will not appeal the
case to the U.S. Supreme Court.
General Accounting Office Issues Report On ACS: The U.S. General
Accounting Office released a report, The American Community Survey:
Accuracy and Timeliness Issues (GAO-02-956R), requested last March by
census panel Chairman Dave Weldon and former Chairman Dan Miller
(R-FL). The legislators asked Congress audit and investigative arm to
review a range of issues related to the ACS design, methodology, and
content.
The GAO concluded that while accuracy and timeliness are important
measures of survey quality, it could not provide an overall comparison
between the ACS and the traditional census long form because there is
no one formula to determine the relative importance of the components.
The report said that ACS data would be significantly more timely than
long form data but that annual (single year) ACS data would be less
accurate than data collected from a long form in the 2010 census because
of the presumed, far larger sample size for the long form (3 million
housing units annually for the ACS versus 20 million housing units for
the 2010 census). The GAO looked at several measures of accuracy,
including sampling error (accuracy of estimates based on sample size and
design) and nonsampling error (accuracy based on operational and
methodological problems, such as nonresponse, duplication, and
geo-coding mistakes).
The GAO also evaluated whether proposed ACS questions duplicate those
asked on other federal surveys and if the reporting burden on the
American public could be reduced. The auditors found substantial
overlap in socio-economic questions between the ACS and several ongoing
household surveys, and recommended that the Census Bureau determine
whether any questions on the American Housing Survey and the Current
Population Survey could be eliminated.
Other issues the GAO explored were the effects of conducting the ACS as
a voluntary, rather than mandatory, survey; justification for questions
asked on the ACS; the usefulness of ACS data to other federal agencies;
and the effectiveness of interviewer training and outreach efforts in
the ACS test program.
Last month, the GAO also released two new reports evaluating components
of Census 2000: 2000 Census: Lessons Learned for Planning a More
Cost-Effective 2010 Census (GAO-02-40) and 2000 Census: Complete Costs
of Coverage Evaluation Programs Are Not Available (GAO-02-41). GAOs
reports are available on-line (www.gao.gov), by telephone (202-512-6000
or TDD/202-512-2537), and by fax (202-512-6061).
ACS test site data released: Late last month, the Census Bureau
released the first set of data for 2001 from its American Community
Survey test sites. The data include comparisons from 2000 to 2001
(called change profiles) for sites with 250,000 or greater population
and single year data for sites with 65,000 or greater population, as
well as more than 100 core tables for sites over 65,000 population. The
change and single year profiles are available on the American Community
Survey web site at http://www.census.gov/acs/www/. The core tables are
available on American FactFinder (part of the Census Bureaus web site)
at http://factfinder.census.gov.
While data from the ACS test sites and supplementary survey have
generally been available in the summer of each year, the Census Bureau
delayed release of the information to avoid confusion with Census 2000
long form data, which were published on a flow basis through October of
this year.
Looking Ahead: Census Oversight in the 108th Congress: The top
legislators on committees and subcommittees that oversee and fund the
Census Bureau are likely to change in the 108th Congress as a result of
the November 5th elections and congressional rules.
In the Senate, Republicans will assume the chairmanships of all
committees and subcommittees by virtue of their majority status. While
no official decisions have been made, it is likely that Sen. Susan
Collins (R-ME) will chair the Committee on Governmental Affairs, the
Census Bureaus authorizing committee. The panels former senior
Republican member, Sen. Fred Thompson (R-TN), retired. Outgoing
chairman Sen. Joseph Lieberman (D-CT), will become the committees
ranking minority member. The committee oversees and sets policy for the
Census Bureau.
Although Republicans maintained their majority and control of all
chairmanships in the House, anticipated changes at the helm of several
committees will affect the Census Bureau. Rep. Dan Burton (R-IN) will
step down as head of the Committee on Government Reform after serving
three terms as chair, the maximum allowed in the House. Several senior
Republican members of the panel, which authorizes bureau activities, are
vying to succeed Rep. Burton. The chairmanship of the Subcommittee on
Civil Service, Census and Agency Organization could change hands when
the committee organizes in January or February, as panel Republicans
seek to fill vacancies at the helm of two other subcommittees.
2010 Census Tests To Begin Next Year: The Census Bureau will conduct
two significant tests in 2003 and 2004 as part of planning for the 2010
decennial census. The 2003 National Census Test, a 250,000 housing unit
mail-out/mail-back only survey, will examine ways to increase
self-response (such as Internet response) and to improve the collection
of race and ethnic data, including the possibility of eliminating Some
Other Race as an option on the race question. The 2004 Census Field
Test will examine possible operational improvements for 2010, including
hand-held computing devices for enumerators and targeted mail-out of
Spanish language questionnaires. The field test will take place in part
of Queens County, New York; Lake County, IL; and Colquitt, Thomas, and
Tift counties in Georgia. Also in 2004, the Census Bureau will use
administrative records to test the feasibility of counting private
American citizens living abroad in the next census. The test will focus
on several countries with significant American populations.
Final News Alert: This is the final News Alert of the Census 2000
Initiative. The Communications Consortium Media Center (CCMC) is
grateful to the many organizations and individuals that received our
news updates over the past several years, for their deep interest in an
accurate census that collects a range of critical demographic and
socio-economic information. As development of the American Community
Survey and planning for the 2010 census continue, CCMC will explore the
creation of a similar outreach project in the future. In the meantime,
past News Alerts, stakeholder letters, and fact sheets about the census
and the ACS will continue to be available on the Census 2000 Initiative
web site at www.census2000.org.
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
<terriann2k(a)aol.com>. For copies of previous News Alerts and other
information, use our web site 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
<Census2000(a)ccmc.org> or 202/326-8700. Please feel free to circulate
this information to colleagues and other interested individuals.
