[Congressional Bills 106th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H.R. 929 Introduced in House (IH)]







106th CONGRESS
  1st Session
                                H. R. 929

      To amend title 13, United States Code, to require that the 
    questionnaire used in taking the 2000 decennial census be made 
            available in certain languages besides English.


_______________________________________________________________________


                    IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                             March 2, 1999

Mr. Miller of Florida (for himself, Mr. Ryan of Wisconsin, Mr. Davis of 
  Virginia, and Mr. Souder) introduced the following bill; which was 
             referred to the Committee on Government Reform

_______________________________________________________________________

                                 A BILL


 
      To amend title 13, United States Code, to require that the 
    questionnaire used in taking the 2000 decennial census be made 
            available in certain languages besides English.

    Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the 
United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

    This Act may be cited as the ``2000 Census Language Barrier Removal 
Act''.

SEC. 2. REQUIREMENT.

    (a) In General.--Subchapter I of chapter 1 of title 13, United 
States Code, is amended by adding at the end the following:
``Sec. 17. Requirement relating to census questionnaires
    ``(a) The Secretary shall design and carry out a program under 
which--
            ``(1) the short form used in taking the 2000 decennial 
        census shall, in addition to being printed in English, be 
        prepared in each of the alternative versions described in 
        subsection (b);
            ``(2) upon request, a household shall, instead of receiving 
        the printed English version of that short form, be sent the 
        alternative version (described in subsection (b)) specified in 
        its request; and
            ``(3) those alternative versions shall otherwise be made 
        available to the public in such manner as will, in the judgment 
        of the Secretary, most effectively enhance response rates in 
        the 2000 decennial census.
    ``(b) The versions described in this subsection are Arabic, 
Armenian, Bengali, Cambodian, Chinese, Creole, Czech, Dutch, Farsi, 
French, German, Greek, Hindi, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, 
Lao, Latvian, Lithuanian, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, 
Russian, Samoan, Serbo-Croatian, Spanish, Tagalog, Thai, Ukrainian, 
Vietnamese, Yiddish, and such other languages as the Secretary 
considers appropriate, as well as braille (for at least English).
    ``(c) For purposes of this Act--
            ``(1) the term `decennial census' means a decennial census 
        of population conducted under section 141(a); and
            ``(2) the term `short form' refers to the short form of the 
        questionnaire used in taking a decennial census.''.
    (b) Technical and Conforming Amendments.--(1) Section 5 of title 
13, United States Code, is amended by striking ``title.'' and inserting 
``title, subject to section 17.''.
    (2) The table of sections for subchapter I of chapter 1 of title 
13, United States Code, is amended by adding after the item relating to 
section 16 the following:

``17. Requirement relating to census questionnaires.''.
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