From: Census2000 &lt;Census2000(a)ccmc.org&gt; Census Bureau Completes Follow-up Visits Ahead of Schedule Plus: President Nominates New Commerce Secretary; House Panel Plans Hearing on American Community Survey Census takers have counted or declared vacant the 42 million households that did not return a questionnaire by mail, finishing the 'nonresponse follow-up' (NRFU) phase of Census 2000 about a week ahead of the scheduled July 7th completion date. Commerce Secretary William Daley and Census Bureau Director Kenneth Prewitt announced the milestone on June 29 at Bureau headquarters in Suitland, MD. Sixty-six percent of the 120 million households on the Bureau's master address list mailed back their forms by the April 17 cut-off date, reversing a decline in mail-back rates since the census first relied primarily on mailed questionnaires in 1970. According to Associated Press reports of the announcement, Director Prewitt praised the work of agency staff for helping to make Census 2000 an operational success. "There had been a sense that this was an incompetent federal agency, that we could not do things right," the director said, referring to criticism of the 1990 census. "I think we erased a lot of those negatives." The AP wire service also quoted a spokesman for House Census Subcommittee Chairman Dan Miller (R-FL), in response to the announcement. "If the bureau has completed its work and done so in a quality manner, that's good and they are to be congratulated. But we are not prepared to make that judgment yet," the spokesman said. Census takers are now revisiting about 12 million housing units as part of quality-check activities to improve the accuracy of earlier counting operations. 'Coverage improvement programs' include revisiting housing units previously identified as vacant or nonexistent, to be sure there are no occupants or that the address does not exist. Census enumerators also are gathering responses from housing units that were built after the fall 1999 cut-off date for address list development. A separate group of experienced survey takers is revisiting a sample of households nationwide as part of the Accuracy and Coverage Evaluation (A.C.E.) program to measure undercounts and overcounts in the direct counting phases of the census. Visits to the 224,000 out of 314,000 households in the A.C.E. sample survey that were not contacted by telephone in May and early June are scheduled to run through mid-August. President nominates new Commerce Department head: President Clinton nominated former California Representative Norman Mineta (D) to succeed outgoing Secretary of Commerce William Daley. If confirmed, Mr. Mineta would be the first Asian Pacific American to serve in a Cabinet position. Secretary Daley announced his decision to step down last month; he will head Vice President Albert Gore's presidential campaign. The Census Bureau is an agency of the Commerce Department. Mr. Mineta represented the San Jose area in the U.S. House of Representatives for 10 terms, eventually chairing the Committee on Public Works and Transportation. After retiring from Congress in 1995, he took a position with Lockheed Martin Corporation, a large defense-oriented company with a growing presence in the transportation sector. The son of Japanese immigrants, Mr. Mineta and his family were sent to an internment camp in Wyoming during World War II when he was 10 years old. He eventually returned to San Jose, where he served on the city council and then as mayor before winning a seat in Congress in 1974. According to published news reports, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), chairman of the Commerce Committee that will consider Mr. Mineta's nomination, said he supported Mr. Mineta's nomination and would schedule confirmation hearings as quickly as possible after Congress returns from its July 4th recess. "He's a good man. He's highly qualified," Sen. McCain is quoted as saying. Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-MS) also reacted positively to the nomination, saying, "It's a good choice. ..We all know him and knew him to be an effective legislator." As a member of Congress, Mr. Mineta was actively involved in debates over census content and methods during the 1990 count. He fought to ensure the collection of accurate data on Asian Pacific American population subgroups and opposed efforts to exclude undocumented residents from the state population totals used for congressional apportionment. House panel to review long form replacement plans: The House Subcommittee on the Census will hold a hearing on July 20 to review the Census Bureau's American Community Survey (ACS). The Bureau hopes the ACS, which is currently being tested in 31 sites around the country, will eliminate the need for a traditional census long form starting in 2010. An additional 750,000 households nationwide also are receiving the ACS questionnaire this year, to help the Bureau compare census long form data with information collected through the ACS. The congressional hearing will be the first to focus on the ACS as a possible replacement for the long form. The census oversight panel has not released a witness list, although the Census Bureau is expected to testify. The hearing will start at 10:00 a.m. in room 2247. Proposed decision-making rule published in Federal Register: On June 20, the Commerce Department published in the Federal Register a proposed rule delegating to the Census Bureau director the authority to decide whether to report statistically corrected census figures to the states next spring for use in the redistricting process. Director Prewitt announced the proposed action at a press briefing on June 14. The official 45-day comment period ends on August 6. Interested parties may send comments to: John H. Thompson, Associate Director for Decennial Census, Bureau of the Census, Suitland and Silver Hill Roads, Building 2, Room 3586, Suitland, MD 20233. The proposed rule and related materials, including a Bureau report on the feasibility of producing statistically corrected data by the April 1, 2001 legal deadline, are available on the agency's web site at <http://www.census.gov/Press-Release/www/presskit.html>. 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 <http://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.