[CTPP] Census News Briefs

Senate Appropriations Committee Approves FY2010 Commerce Spending Bill Census Director Nominee Still on "Hold" Utah Lawmakers Seek Changes in Census Methods and Universe MN Rep's Challenge to Census Questions Draws Fire The Rest of the News SENATE APPROPRIATIONS COMMITTEE APPROVES FY2010 COMMERCE SPENDING BILL The Senate Appropriations Committee approved its version of the spending bill that will fund 2010 census operations next year, after reducing the account by $50 million that appropriators believe reflects inflated assumptions about the cost of mileage reimbursement for census field workers. The President's budget request assumed a reimbursement of 62.5 cents per mile, 7.5 cents per mile more than the current General Services Administration reimbursement rate for federal workers, the committee said. The bill, H.R. 2847 (as amended by the committee), allocates $7.324 billion for the Census Bureau, meeting the full Administration budget request for all agency programs, except for the reduction in mileage reimbursement for temporary 2010 census employees. The Periodic Censuses and Programs account, which also funds the quinquennial Economic Census, received $7.065 billion. The Salaries and Expenses account, which covers ongoing statistical programs such as the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP), received $259 million, including funds for a new initiative to improve measurement of the service sector. The Commerce Department did not issue an "impact statement" for the bill's Census Bureau allocation, suggesting that the Administration will not challenge the committee's decision to reduce funding for mileage reimbursement. At the mark-up, Commerce, Justice, and Science Subcommittee Chairwoman Barbara Mikulski (D-MD) applauded the "bipartisan cooperation" in drafting a measure that reflected "difficult decisions" among programs as diverse as community policing and the National Weather Service. Sen. Mikulski said funding the 2010 census was "one of our biggest challenges" and that the failure of technology initiatives was the panel's "greatest source of frustration." "Everybody counts and everybody needs to be counted," the chairwoman concluded, in justifying the roughly $7 billion expenditure for the census next year. In its report accompanying the Fiscal Year 2010 (FY2010) Commerce, Justice and Science Appropriations bill (Senate Rpt. 111-34), the committee said it "remains apprehensive about the management" of the decennial census "based on past performance," citing the loss of laptop computers containing personally-identifiable information two years ago, and major downsizing of the contract for GPS-equipped handheld computers to collect information in the field. "[T]he Committee is watchful of new reforms to ensure no new blunders arise forcing the census to be delayed or even compromised," lawmakers wrote. Senate appropriators disagreed with a decision by their House counterparts to reduce the President's budget request for the 2010 census by $206 million, a move that Census Bureau officials said would require them to tap into a $573 million contingency fund rather than risk the consequences of cutting back 2010 census operations and programs. "Without this safety net," the Senate committee said in its report, "the census could run the risk of not fulfilling its constitutional mandate." Sources familiar with the House Appropriations Committee maneuver believe that the budget reduction may have resulted from a misunderstanding about the status of Fiscal Year 2009 funds that appeared to be available for carry-over to the following year, but in fact were committed to a paid advertising buy under the extensive 2010 census communications campaign. The Senate committee expressed concern about efforts to reach the "hardest to count populations" during the census and said it expects the Census Bureau to hire a "diverse and local pool" of temporary workers who will "bring language skills as well as cultural understanding" to the partnership and outreach programs. Appropriators also chastised the Census Bureau for failing to follow through on recommendations by the Commerce Department's Inspector General (IG) to improve the accuracy of the master address list and to contain census costs, and asked the agency to report back on its plans to implement the IG's suggestions. REPUBLICANS CONTINUE TO BLOCK CONFIRMATION OF CENSUS DIRECTOR Commerce Chief Appoints Advisers To Fill Gap The nomination of Dr. Robert Groves to be director of the U.S. Census Bureau continues to languish in the U.S. Senate, with one or more anonymous Republican senators objecting to a confirmation vote, according to Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY). Commerce Secretary Gary Locke issued a statement on June 24, saying that, "The Census Bureau cannot wait for strong leadership any longer. The longer this nomination is held up, the greater the risk to the accuracy and success of the 2010 census." Sen. Thomas Carper (D-DE), chairman of the subcommittee that oversees the Census Bureau, said in a statement the following day that, "the Census Bureau has encountered serious challenges that threaten to jeopardize the success and cost-effectiveness of the 2010 Census." Chairman Carper called Dr. Groves a "qualified, experienced candidate who has received support by members on both sides of the aisle" and urged senators to "put partisanship aside" to confirm the nominee. "A leaderless Census Bureau is not likely to pull off an accurate count or to avoid the costly mistakes that have already plagued preparations for the upcoming census," the senator warned. Stakeholder groups continued to express their support for a quick confirmation vote in the Senate. The National Urban League and the National Coalition on Black Civic Participation, co-conveners of a Unity Census 2010 Coalition last spring to mobilize the African American community in support of the census, urged Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) to expedite a vote on Dr. Groves' nomination, saying, "With only 10 months remaining before the April 1, 2010 Census, we believe the appointment of the Census Bureau director has escalated to emergency status." President Obama nominated Dr. Groves, director of the University of Michigan's Institute for Survey Research and a former Census Bureau Associate Director, in April; the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs unanimously approved the nomination on May 20. Secretary Locke moved to shore up management of the decennial census by appointing three expert advisers with significant experience at the Census Bureau, to "provide an up-to-date assessment of the state of readiness and potential vulnerabilities for the looming 2010 census," according to a June 30 statement from the Commerce Department. Kenneth Prewitt, director of the Census Bureau during the 2000 count and currently a professor of public affairs at Columbia University, will advise senior agency staff on overall management of the census. John Thompson, the Census Bureau Associate Director responsible for conduct of the 2000 census and now the president of the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago, will review census operations. Nancy Potok, the Census Bureau's Principal Associate Director and Chief Financial Officer in 2000 and currently Chief Operating Officer of McManis & Monsalve Associates, will provide advice on contracts and field operations. The part-time consultants will not have decision-making authority and will report to him until a new Census director is confirmed, Secretary Locke said. They will help Census Bureau managers "conduct a quick-turnaround risk assessment study to identify the chief areas of concern and prepare the new director to make his own judgments about priorities." The department chief also suggested that the confirmation delay will make the director's job more difficult, saying, "[I]f [Dr. Groves] is to move the Bureau as fast and as far as it needs to go, he'll need help." UTAH LAWMAKERS SEEK CHANGES IN CENSUS PROCESS AND COUNTING UNIVERSE Two Utah representatives are pursuing legislation to correct what they believe are deficiencies in the counting process and the universe of Americans counted for apportionment purposes. Proposal Would Shift Follow-Up Interviews to Postal Workers: Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-UT), a member of the House census oversight subcommittee, has told several news organizations that he intends to introduce a bill that would establish a "postal holiday" to allow U.S. Postal Service workers to count residents who don't mail back their census forms. The congressman told a Fox News program host on June 26 that the Census Bureau "is partnering with nefarious organizations -- like ACORN -- in order to hire 750,000 people to go out and do this counting. Now, at the same time, we have a postal service with 760,000 employees who is a trusted entity, who already is charged with going door-to-door to every home in America." The Census Bureau estimates that people in less than two-thirds of the nation's housing units will mail back their questionnaires, requiring census enumerators to visit about 47 million unresponsive homes to collect responses to the ten questions. Rep. Chaffetz told Fox News that the Postal Service could suspend mail delivery on Census Day in order to "do the enumeration that needs to be done to fulfill our constitutional duty of a census." Under the 2010 census plan, the non-response follow-up operation is expected to take six to eight weeks, with enumerators visiting housing units up to six times to try and gather information from residents or, if necessary, from neighbors or landlords. The USPS and Census Bureau jointly studied the possibility of having postal employees go door-to-door to collect information during the non-response follow-up phase of the census. The agencies concluded in a 1993 report that using mail carriers to conduct interviews with unresponsive residents "would have a negative impact on the ability of the Postal Service to deliver the mail." (Green, S. and H.A. Scarr, Letter of Transmittal: "U.S. Postal Service-Census Cooperation in Planning for the 2000 Decennial Census of Population and Housing, U.S. Department of Commerce, November 5, 1993.) In 1995, in a report issued by the National Academy of Sciences' National Research Council, an expert panel looking at ways to update census procedures agreed with the joint study and concluded that "the decennial census cannot be conducted by the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) in any way that would be cost-effective or an improvement over the conventional census." In Modernizing the U.S. Census (Barry Edmonston and Charles Schultze, eds., National Academy Press, Washington, DC), the Committee on National Statistics panel noted that letter carriers would need to work significant overtime hours to complete the count and would likely earn four times the pay of census enumerators, thereby "significantly increas[ing] census costs." The report pointed out that postal workers "are not well acquainted with the occupants of residential addresses" because they often deliver mail to central locations in apartment buildings or to cluster boxes at the entrance to suburban housing developments, instead of going door-to-door. The expert panel expressed particular concern about conducting the census in rural areas, where the actual physical location of a housing unit often is unknown to the Postal Service. In addition, the panel said, "people may have serious concerns about reporting information to letter carriers who deliver their mail every day." Bill Would Require Count of All Americans Living Overseas: Rep. Chaffetz also joined Rep. Rob Bishop (R-UT) in sponsoring a bill (H.R. 3013) to require the inclusion of private American citizens living abroad in the state population totals used to apportion seats in the U.S. House of Representatives following each decennial census. The legislation comes on the heels of an amendment Rep. Jim Matheson (D-UT) successfully attached to a State Department authorization bill in the House of Representatives last month, which would require the Census Director and Secretary of State to study the feasibility of using passports of U.S. citizens living overseas to include them in the decennial census for apportionment purposes. (See Census News Brief #66, June 19, 2009, for more information on the Matheson amendment to H.R. 2410.) The Bishop bill would direct the Secretary of Commerce (who has statutory authority to conduct the census) to take "appropriate measures" to include all Americans living abroad in the 2010 census, "to the maximum extent practicable." The counting process would include, at a minimum, reliance on administrative records submitted by non-governmental organizations, as well as "Be Counted" forms distributed at U.S. embassies. In a June 24 statement, Rep. Bishop noted that previous Census Bureau studies of conducting an overseas count focused only on "attempts to enumerate all private Americans living abroad, not just ... an option to count those who wish to be counted." The Census Act (Title 13, U.S.C., §221) makes response to the decennial census mandatory. Rep. Chaffetz added, "The government is spending millions to make sure we are counting illegal immigrants. You can't tell me that we don't have the same responsibility to U.S. citizens living abroad." The State of Utah unsuccessfully sued the Commerce Department after the 2000 census, claiming that the failure to count Mormon missionaries working abroad during the census cost the state its fourth congressional district. The state amended its lawsuit to challenge the use of statistical imputation methods (called "hot deck imputation") in compiling the final population numbers, saying the addition of people not counted directly through the mail or door-to-door visits violated both the Census Act and the Constitution's census clause and also cost the state a seat in Congress. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2002 (Utah v. Evans, 536 U.S. 452) that imputing people into the count based on the characteristics of nearby households "violates neither the statute nor the Constitution." A National Academy of Sciences panel that reviewed the 2000 census reported that about 5.8 million people were imputed into the count, including about 1.2 million people imputed into households for which there was no information about the size of the household or even, in some cases, whether the home was occupied or vacant. (Citro, Constance F., Daniel L. Cork, and Janet L. Norwood, eds., The 2000 Census: Counting Under Adversity," The National Academies Press, Washington, DC, 2004) The state almost certainly will regain its fourth seat after the 2010 census, according to all apportionment projections. Currently, only members of the armed forces and federal government civilian employees assigned to duty stations abroad during the census (as well as family members living with them) are included in the state population figures used only for congressional apportionment. REPUBLICAN LAWMAKERS COUNTER REP. BACHMANN'S ANTI-CENSUS STANCE Several House Republicans, responding to public assertions by fellow GOP Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) that she would refuse to answer most questions asked in the 2010 census, issued their own statement to emphasize "how important it is for every individual to fill out their census forms." Rep. Bachmann told The Washington Times and other news organizations last month that she and her family would not answer any questions in the census beyond the number of people living in their household, which she claimed was the only information the U.S. Constitution requires. The congresswoman subsequently told a Fox News interviewer, "I'm not encouraging Americans not to fill out the census," according to a June 26 article in the Minneapolis Star Tribune. Reps. Patrick McHenry (R-NC), Lynn Westmoreland (R-GA), and John Mica (R-FL), all members of the House Subcommittee on Information Policy, Census, and National Archives, said in a July 1st statement: "Boycotting the constitutionally-mandated census is illogical, illegal and not in the best interest of our country." Federal law requires response to all questions asked in the decennial census and related American Community Survey (ACS). Saying that they shared Rep. Bachmann's concern about the inclusion of the non-profit organization ACORN in the Census Bureau's 2010 Census Partnership Program, the legislators noted that, "Ms. Bachmann's boycott only increases the likelihood that ACORN-recruited census takers will be dispatched to her constituents' homes. Anyone who completes and returns their census form will remove any need for a census taker to visit their residence." The congressmen also suggested that refusing to answer all or most questions in the census "opens the door for partisans to statistically adjust census results," referring to methods, considered in the last three censuses to correct undercounts and overcounts, that will not be used in the 2010 census, according to Commerce Secretary Gary Locke and Census director-nominee Robert Groves in testimony before Congress earlier this year. In a June 18 letter, Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY), also a member of the census oversight subcommittee, asked Acting Census Director Thomas Mesenbourg to respond to Rep. Bachmann's concerns that "outside groups would have access to census data" and to comment on "the consequences for the government and the economy if substantial numbers of citizens in fact followed Rep. Bachmann's advice" not to fully participate in the 2010 census. A preliminary analysis by the Brookings Institution, a Washington, DC-based think tank, showed that Minnesota received $6.26 billion (or $1,204 per person) in federal program grants in Fiscal Year 2007, based in whole or in part on census data. The six counties within Rep. Bachmann's Sixth Congressional District received a total of nearly $1 billion in federal program funds based on census data that year, according to the Brookings analysis. THE REST OF THE NEWS ... The House Subcommittee on Information Policy, Census, and National Archives will hold a hearing on Thursday, July 9, to review federal agency uses of census data. The hearing, which will start at 2:00 PM in Room 2154 Rayburn House Office Building, originally was scheduled for June 25. Witnesses include a representative of Social Compact, a "non-profit organization that breaks down barriers to public investment in underserved urban areas ... by delivering the reliable, representative, and up-to-the-minute information about a community's economic health needed to make critically important investments possible." The Census Bureau's five Race and Ethnic Advisory Committees will meet in Washington, DC on July 20, while the 2010 Census Advisory Committee (CAC) will meet on July 21. The mid-summer meetings for committees that usually meet twice a year, in the spring and fall, suggest heightened interest in final census preparations, as the Census Bureau completes development of its paid advertising campaign, prepares to open hundreds of local census offices and to recruit three million prospective temporary census workers, and finalizes residential and group quarters address lists in anticipation of the start of the population and housing count next winter. 2010 CAC chairman Marc Morial, president and CEO of the National Urban League, told CNN during a July 4th interview from the Essence Music Festival in New Orleans, where he served two terms as mayor, that the census represented "economic and political empowerment" and that he wanted to put next year's decennial count on the "radar screen" of African Americans. Census News Briefs are prepared by Terri Ann Lowenthal, an independent legislative and policy consultant specializing in the census and federal statistics. All views expressed in the News Briefs are solely those of the author. Please direct questions about the information in this News Brief to Ms. Lowenthal at TerriAnn2K(a)aol.com. Please feel free to circulate this document to other interested individuals and organizations. Ms. Lowenthal is a consultant to the nonpartisan Census Project, organized by the Communications Consortium Media Center in Washington, DC. Previous Census News Briefs are posted at www.thecensusproject.org.