Terri Ann Lowenthal
Legislative & Policy Consultant
1250 4th St., SW
Apt. W615
Washington, DC 20024
(tel.) 202-484-3067
TerriAnn2K@aol.com
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June 12, 2005

CENSUS NEWS BRIEF

 

HOUSE PANEL APPROVES ‘06 CENSUS FUNDS;

AMENDMENTS COULD TARGET ACS, 2010 CENSUS

 ON HOUSE FLOOR

 

 

The House of Representatives Appropriations Subcommittee on Science, State, Justice, and Commerce approved a bill on June 7 that includes funding for Census Bureau programs in fiscal year 2006, which starts October 1.  The American Community Survey (ACS) and 2010 census planning activities received roughly the amounts requested by the Bush Administration, but amendments on the House floor could target one or both accounts, as lawmakers look for ways to pay for other programs within the massive spending bill.  Overall, the recommended appropriation for the Census Bureau is 12 percent above its 2005 funding level.  (Neither the bill nor committee report numbers are available as of this writing.)

 

Appropriators support shift to ACS; prisoner enumeration to be studied:  The bill allocates $213.849 million -- $630,000 below the request -- to continue designing a short form-only census in 2010.  The committee noted in report language accompanying the bill that a simplified, streamlined census should cost $2 billion less than repeating a traditional census with a long form.  The bill also includes $79.799 million, the amount requested, for continued updates to the address list (MAF) and digital maps (TIGER system).  The committee urged federal, state, and local agencies to share address and geographic information with the Census Bureau, and instructed the bureau to use currently available information whenever possible to improve the MAF and TIGER system.

 

The American Community Survey (ACS) received $169.948 million, the amount requested.  In 2006, the Bureau plans to add group quarters (such as college dorms, nursing homes, and prisons) to the survey for the first time.  The committee noted that its support for replacing the once-a-decade long form with an ongoing survey remains “steadfast.”

 

The appropriations bill requires the Census Bureau to continue collecting data on “some other race” in the census, a directive first included in last year’s appropriations bill.  Before Congress intervened, the bureau had begun testing a revised census race question that eliminated the “some other race” option.

 

The committee report also directs the Census Bureau to evaluate a change in the way prisoners are counted in the decennial census.  Current residence rules place prisoners in the institution in which they are incarcerated on Census Day.  Several prison reform advocacy groups have proposed counting prisoners at their pre-incarceration place of residence.  The Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law issued a report last year, Accuracy Counts: Incarcerated People and the Census, in which it argues that counting inmates at their prison location deprives their home communities of funding for services and programs, as well as fair political representation in state legislatures and Congress.  The number of people incarcerated in rural prisons grew significantly in the 1990s, the report notes, with 40 percent of the nation’s prison population now housed in rural facilities.  The Census Bureau would have 90 days to complete its study of an alternative counting method for prisoners, if the final appropriations bill retains the House report language.

 

The Brennan Center report is available at: www.brennancenter.org/resources/cji/RV4_AccuracyCounts.pdf.

 

Floor amendments could target ACS, 2010 census funds:  Funding for the American Community Survey or other Census Bureau programs could be at risk when the full House considers the Science/Commerce appropriations bill on June 14.  Last year, ACS funds narrowly survived a vote on the House floor when Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-NY) proposed shifting funds from the survey to a popular community policing program.  Congressional sources indicate that Rep. Weiner might offer a similar amendment this year.

 

The Census Bureau has cautioned that key components of a redesigned 2010 census, including the ACS as a replacement for the traditional long form, could be at risk if Congress cuts funding for these programs below the requested amount.  A cut of $52 million, the bureau said, would force it to abandon plans to use hand-held computers for field data collection.  It also would eliminate plans for a 2006 field test on the Cheyenne Indian Reservation in South Dakota, and delay the award of a major data processing contract by six months.

 

If Congress cuts $26 million from the ACS, the Census Bureau said it would cancel plans to include group quarters in the survey and reduce the sample size by roughly 10 percent.  The ACS could not produce reliable data for block groups and census tracts under those conditions, the Bureau warned.  The bureau also would eliminate the Methods Panel planned for 2006, which is designed to test all new questionnaire wording and content before 2008, to ensure consistent data collection for the five year period through 2012, when the ACS will first produce block group and tract level data in place of the census long form.

 

Stakeholders urge full funding for ACS and 2010 census:  A diverse group of stakeholder organizations sent a letter on June 9 to key House and Senate appropriators, urging them to reject efforts to reduce funding for the American Community Survey and 2010 census planning.  “Operational risk and costs will escalate if the Census Bureau cannot thoroughly test and evaluate new methods and design features,” the groups cautioned in their letter to Rep. Frank Wolf (R-VA) and Rep. Alan Mollohan (D-WV), chairman and ranking minority member of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Science, State, Justice, and Commerce, and to Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL) and Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-MD), their counterparts on the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, and Science.

 

The stakeholders called the ACS “a relatively modest investment [that] will allow legislators to target more effectively hundreds of billions of dollars annually in program funds, and businesses to invest trillions of dollars more prudently, for the betterment of all communities.”  The full text of the letter will be available soon through the Communications Consortium Media Center (www.ccmc.org), which has organized The Census Project with support from The Annie E. Casey Foundation.  A second letter with additional signers may be sent this week.

 

 

Census News Briefs are prepared by Terri Ann Lowenthal, an independent consultant in Washington, DC, with support from The Annie E. Casey Foundation and other organizations.  Ms. Lowenthal is also a consultant to The Census Project, sponsored by the Communications Consortium Media Center.  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 202/484-3067 or by e-mail at TerriAnn2K@aol.com.  Please feel free to circulate this document to other interested individuals and organizations.