LOCKE CONFIRMED AS COMMERCE SECRETARY; HOUSE PANEL REVIEWS 2010 CENSUS COMMUNICATIONS CAMPAIGN Plus: Address Canvassing Starts; Stakeholder Activities; and more. On March 24, the U.S. Senate confirmed, by voice vote, the nomination of former Washington State Governor Gary Locke to be the nation’s 36th Secretary of Commerce, with responsibility for a number of diverse federal agencies including the U.S. Census Bureau and the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA), both part of the department’s Economics and Statistics Administration (ESA). The President has not yet nominated a Census director or Under Secretary of Commerce for Economic Affairs, who would head ESA; both positions require Senate confirmation. The director of BEA is a career civil servant. House panel reviews 2010 census communications campaign: The House Subcommittee on Information Policy, Census, and National Archives held a hearing on March 23 to review the Census Bureau’s strategy for reducing the undercount of “hard to count” populations. The hearing focused on the 2010 Census Communication Campaign, which includes paid media, outreach, Census in the Schools, and the Partnership Program. Witnesses included Acting Census Bureau Director Thomas Mesenbourg and representatives of the Government Accountability Office (GAO), Communications Campaign contractor DraftFCB, and New York City’s 2010 census campaign. Statements and testimony from the hearing are available on-line at http://informationpolicy.oversight.house.gov/story.asp?ID=2350. Subcommittee Chairman William “Lacy” Clay (D-MO) noted that many of the people missed in the 2000 census “were African American or Hispanic, most were poor, and all of them deserved to be counted,” said Chairman Clay. “I expect the Census Bureau, the Partnership organizations and the advertising campaign to aggressively target these hard to count populations and to make serious progress in reducing the chronic undercount of minorities.” Mr. Mesenbourg and DraftFCB Executive Vice President Jeff Tarakajian reported that the total advertising and outreach budget for the 2010 census is $312 million, which includes additional funds from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (the stimulus bill); $258 million of that amount is allocated for paid media. According to the GAO, 55 percent of the advertising budget will be used for national media, and 45 percent will be used for local media, primarily to target specific hard-to-count communities. Stimulus funds also are being used to expand the Partnership Program; the Census Bureau will hire about 2,000 partnership specialists by June 2009, adding to the 680 partnership staff hired earlier this year under the original 2010 census plan. During the hearing, Chairman Clay expressed concern about the amount of stimulus funds allocated for media and outreach targeting African American, Hispanic, and Asian American communities. The congressman said he believed more money should be spent on advertising in Black and Hispanic communities, and he questioned the preliminary decision to increase advertising in Asian American communities by $13 million, saying that Asian Americans were “historically over counted” in the census. In response to Rep. Clay’s remarks, which were reported in the St. Louis Post Dispatch, the Asian American Justice Center (AAJC), a member of the Census Bureau’s 2010 Census Advisory Committee, prepared a fact sheet, “The Truth About Asian Americans and the Census: Debunking the Myths,” posted on its web site at (http://www.advancingequality.org/censuspubs/). Addressing the assertion that Asian Americans were overcounted in the 2000 census, the publication notes that, “The Census Bureau itself did not have confidence in its measures of census accuracy in 2000, especially for smaller population groups such as Asian Americans. The Census Bureau cited ‘troubling anomalies and unexplained results’ in its decision not to use the results of its accuracy-check survey to adjust the final census numbers.” The fact sheet refers to the Accuracy and Coverage Evaluation (A.C.E.) Revision II report issued in March 2003, which documents the Census Bureau’s final decision not to use the results of the A.C.E. survey to adjust the 2000 census for any official purpose, such as the allocation of federal program funds. Later in the week, Rep. Clay and Rep. Mike Honda (D-CA), chairman of the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus and a member of the House appropriations subcommittee that funds the Census Bureau, issued a joint statement recognizing Senate confirmation of Commerce Secretary Gary Locke. The lawmakers said they looked forward to working with the Secretary and the President to help ensure adequate resources for “outreach to all hard-to-count communities, including African American, Asian American and Pacific Islander, Hispanic, and tribal communities. “ Noting that many racial and ethnic minorities distrust government agencies and are reluctant to answer government surveys, Reps. Honda and Clay said, “We support the Census Bureau’s media and other outreach to linguistically and culturally isolated communities, such as households in the African, Asian, Latino, and other diasporas.” The statement emphasized the need for “robust resources for in-language paid media,” noting high proportions of limited English-language proficiency among Asian Americans and in Latino households where Spanish is spoken at home. The legislators also cited a 300 percent increase in Asian media outlets in the United States between 1990 and 2007. 2010 Census operational update: 2010 Census field operations kick-off on a large scale this week with the start of address canvassing. More than 140,000 “address listers” will update and verify 145 million addresses on the Census Bureau’s Master Address File (MAF) over several months, ending in mid-July. The work will be conducted out of 151 Local Census Offices (LCOs); the remaining 350 LCOs will open in the Fall. Address canvassing will include “group quarters,” such as college dorms, prisons, and military barracks, for the first time. Census workers also will update the address list this Spring to include shelters, soup kitchens, mobile food vans, and similar locations that serve people without a usual home. The Census Bureau formally kicks-off its 2010 Census Partnership Program with a National Partner Briefing in Washington, DC on March 30. About 250 non-profit, corporate, and government partner organizations are expected to attend. The goal of the briefing is to “inform partners about the 2010 Census; articulate the role partners can play; identify where partners can access resources; and motivate partners to launch 2010 Census outreach efforts,” according to a Census Bureau description of the event. The Census Bureau will make a video and audio recording of the briefing available on-line for the thousands of partner organizations not able to attend; it said that more than 10,000 organizations nationwide have signed Partnership Agreements for the 2010 census. About 140,000 organizations were official census partners in 2000. Advocates question tabulation plans for married gay couples: Advocates for the gay community are challenging the Census Bureau’s decision to re-code married couples of the same sex as “unmarried partners” in the 2010 census relationship question. New York City Councilman Bill de Blasio (D-District 39) introduced a resolution earlier this month, calling on the Census Bureau to publish data on same-sex couples who report that they are married. New York State recognizes same-sex marriages performed in states and other countries where gay marriage is legal. According to articles in The New York Times and other news outlets, the Census Bureau has determined that the Defense of Marriage Act of 1996 prohibits it from tabulating data on marriages that are not between opposite-sex couples. Similarly, same-sex couples with children will not meet the Census Bureau’s definition of a “family” when the agency publishes data on families and households; the children will be considered part of a single-parent household. The National Gay and Lesbian Task Force Action Fund, calling the Census Bureau’s tabulation policy “expensive and insulting” and “a holdover from the Bush Administration,” is circulating a petition to Acting Census Director Thomas Mesenbourg, asking him “to reverse the Census Bureau’s current policy and count all legally recognized marriages equally in the 2010 census — including those of same-sex couples.” Stakeholder activities highlight 2010 census: Stakeholder organizations are continuing to highlight the importance of an accurate count and mobilizing their constituencies across the country to promote participation. The Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus (CAPAC) held a national teleconference on March 23 to promote an accurate count of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders in the 2010 census. CAPAC Chairman Mike Honda (D-CA) moderated the discussion, which included remarks by Associate Census Director for Decennial Census, Arnold Jackson; Terry Ao, Asian American Justice Center; Bill Imada, President of IW Group, which is developing the 2010 census media campaign for the Asian American community; and other census stakeholders. On April 1, 2009, a coalition of national Spanish-language media and Latino organizations will launch their “ya es hora HAGASE CONTAR! (It’s Time, Make Yourself Count!) campaign , to “motivate and inform the nearly 50 million U.S. Latinos to participate in the 2010 Census.” The announcement comes one year before Census Day, which is set by law (Title 13, United States Code) and provides the reference point for all census responses. The Population Reference Bureau (PRB) is hosting a policy seminar, “Countdown to the 2010 Census: What You Need to Know,” on April 15 in Washington, DC. The “brown bag lunch” event will feature Dr. Daniel Weinberg, Assistant Director for Decennial Census and ACS, U.S. Census Bureau; Dr. William O’Hare, Senior Fellow at the Annie E. Casey Foundation and a consultant to the Funder Census Initiative; and Mary Jo Hoeksema, Director of Government and Public Affairs for the Population Association of America and a consultant to The Census Project. For more information about any of these events, please visit the web sites of the sponsoring organizations. Census advisory committees to hold spring meetings: The Census Advisory Committee of Professional Associations will meet on April 16-17, 2009, at Census Bureau headquarters in Suitland, MD. The meeting, which is open to the public, runs from 8:30 AM – 5:00 PM on April 16, and from 8:30 AM – 12:00 PM on April 17. The Census Bureau’s five Race and Ethnic Advisory Committees (REACs) will meet on April 22-24, 2009, and the 2010 Census Advisory Committee will meet on May 7-8, 2009, both at Census Bureau headquarters. Agendas for these meetings will be available soon. Anyone interested in attending advisory committee meetings must call 301-763-3231 upon arrival at the Census Bureau on the day of the meeting and present a photo ID, due to increased security procedures. Census News Briefs are prepared by Terri Ann Lowenthal, a legislative and policy consultant working with a wide range of census stakeholders to promote an accurate 2010 census. 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 and to reprint any or all of the information. Previous Census News Briefs are posted at the Census Project web site (www.thecensusproject.org). -- Ed Christopher 708-283-3534 (V) 708-574-8131 (cell) FHWA RC-TST-PLN 19900 Governors Dr Olympia Fields, IL 60461