[CTPP] Federal Appeals Court ruling on Census Bureau statistically adjusted data

Census Told to Show Adjusted Count Wed Oct 9, 4:08 PM ET By WILLIAM McCALL, Associated Press Writer PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) - A federal appeals court Wednesday ruled that the Census Bureau must release its statistically adjusted count for every state, county and neighborhood in the United States. Billions of dollars in government funding that is distributed according to population is potentially at stake in the dispute. The Census Bureau has refused to release the adjusted numbers, contending the figures are unreliable and would cause political battles over federal funding. The bureau has instead been releasing only the population counts arrived at through census takers and questionnaires. But a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said that the public is entitled to see the adjusted figures, too, under federal open-government law. Congressional Democrats, minorities and big-city mayors have been pressing for the release of the numbers on the suspicion that large numbers of people were missed and that their districts were shortchanged federal, state and local funding because of it. A 1999 U.S. Supreme Court ruling bars the use of adjusted numbers for reapportioning congressional seats, but such data can be used for local districting purposes and for distributing federal grants. A spokesman for the Justice Department, which represented the Census Bureau, did not immediately return a call for comment. After census takers and census questionnaires were sent out in 2000, the Census Bureau used mathematical formulas to estimate how many minorities, renters and other groups might have been missed in inner cities, rural areas and other places. Those figures are often called the "undercount." Oregon state Sens. Susan Castillo and Margaret Carter, both Democrats, filed a Freedom of Information Act request to see the adjusted population figures. But the Census Bureau asked for an exception to the law. In its ruling Wednesday, the appeals court upheld U.S. District Judge James A. Redden of Portland, who last November ordered the government to release the undercount. The case marked the first time a federal judge had ruled that the adjusted 2000 counts for the entire country must be released.