[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 16 (Thursday, February 26, 1998)]
[House]
[Page H650]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[[Page H650]]
                      CENSUS DEBATE IS NOTHING NEW

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. Maloney) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mrs. MALONEY of New York. Mr. Speaker, the folks at the Census Bureau 
must be getting a pretty thick skin. This is certainly not the first 
time they have been criticized. Guess who lodged the first complaint 
about an undercount? George Washington. He complained to Thomas 
Jefferson, who was the Marti Ritchie of the 1790s, that the numbers 
were too low. Washington knew that even back in 1790 when there were 
only about 3.9 million people living in the colonies, that there was no 
way to accurately count each American by simply going door to door.
  The Census has been surrounded by controversy ever since. In 1920, 
the party in power was so dismayed by the Census numbers, they simply 
dismissed them. For the first time, the Census showed that urban areas 
held a greater proportion of the population than did rural areas. The 
shift was so devastating to the majority, that Congress just failed to 
act, claiming that these numbers could not possibly be right. The 1930 
Census affirmed the shift and Congress was forced to act.
  In 1940, the impact of the undercount simply could not be denied. The 
War Department was depending on the Census to determine the number of 
young men eligible to serve. Turns out there were many more men ready 
to defend their country than the count had indicated. Specifically, 
young black men were greatly underestimated.
  Over 5 percent of the population was left out of the 1940 Census. As 
a result, the Census Bureau began a program to measure and understand 
the undercount. The undercount in the Census declined steadily across 
the decades until 1980 when the Census counted 98.8 percent of the 
population, an undercount of 1.2 percent.
  However, while the total undercount grew smaller across time, the 
difference between black and nonblack undercounts did not change much. 
In fact, between 1940 and 1970, the difference actually increased 
slightly. In 1990, things really got bad. The net undercount went from 
1.2 percent in 1980, to 1.6 percent, and the difference between black 
and nonblack was the highest ever measured.
  The real story was even worse. The General Accounting Office 
estimated that there were over 26 million errors in the 1990 Census. 
About 10 million people were missed, 6 million people were counted 
twice and 10 million were counted in the wrong place. That is an error 
rate of over 10 percent.
  We might ask why the Census Bureau has not done something about that 
problem. Well, the answer is that they have tried. But the efforts of 
its statisticians have been blocked by politicians trying to preserve 
their domain. The Census Bureau was under pressure to correct the 
errors in the 1980 Census, but at that time the technology for 
measuring and correcting those errors was not well enough developed to 
do the job. However, following the 1980 Census, the Census Bureau 
developed a research program to be ready to correct the 1990 Census.
  The research went forward, but when time came to put the system in 
place to correct the 1990 Census, the Under Secretary for Economic 
Statistics at the Department of Commerce, an appointee of President 
Reagan, blocked implementation.
  New York City, and several others, sued the Secretary to force the 
Secretary to implement the measures necessary to correct the 1990 
Census, but before the case could be heard by the courts, the Commerce 
Department settled. The settlement called for a scaled down survey to 
measure the errors and an evaluation panel of eight experts, four 
appointed by the Secretary of Commerce, four appointed by the 
plaintiff.
  In the end, they split 4-4. The four experts selected by the 
Secretary of Commerce recommended against correcting the Census. The 
four experts selected by the plaintiffs recommended in favor of using 
the survey to correct the Census. The experts at the Census Bureau 
voted 7 to 2 in favor of the correction and the director of the Census 
Bureau recommended to the Secretary that the Census counts be 
corrected.
  The Secretary, however, refused to follow that advice and in the end 
the Supreme Court upheld his power to do so.
  Dr. Barbara Bryant, President Bush's Director of the Census Bureau in 
1990, set in place a research program to develop plans for the 2000 
census that were above reproach. She called on the National Academy of 
Science for help, as well as talented statisticians and demographers 
throughout the country.
  That research program led to the design for the census that we are 
fighting over today: A design to correct the 26 million errors. A 
design to reduce the cost of the census. A design that is fundamentally 
more fair and honest. That is the design that our colleagues want to 
tear down. If they succeed, they will take the whole census down with 
them.
  Our colleagues who oppose correcting the mistakes made in 1990 have 
no credible alternative. Their only response to fixing the problem is 
to throw more money at it. We will give the census a blank check, they 
cry. Friends, money will not solve this problem.
  Counting noses didn't work for Thomas Jefferson when there were less 
than 4 million persons in the United States and few of those were west 
of the Allegheny Mountains. Counting noses certainly will not work when 
there are over 260 million people spread across the 48 contiguous 
states, Alaska, Hawaii and the territories.
  Every expert and scientific panel that has studied this problem has 
agreed with the Census Bureau. To fix the 10 percent error in the 1990 
census you have to go beyond traditional counting techniques.
  The opponents of an accurate census are quick to claim the plan for 
the 2000 census is unconstitutional, but none of the constitutional 
scholars they claim to support their views has yet to put pen to paper. 
There has yet to be published a serious scholarly article that makes 
their case.
  The opponents of an accurate census are quick to scream that the plan 
for the 2000 census is against the will of Congress.
  However, Congress ceded its authority to design and run the census to 
the Secretary of Commerce. The opponents of an accurate census know 
they cannot pass a veto proof bill that rescinds that authority.
  The plans for the 2000 census are sound. However, the opponents of an 
accurate census are doing everything in their power to make sure those 
plans fail.
  If the next census exceeds the error rate of the last one, it will 
not be the fault of the employees at the Census Bureau.
  If hundreds of Americans are left out of the democratic process 
because of flaws in the census, it will not be the fault of the Clinton 
Administration.
  If the next census is a failure it will be the fault of those here in 
Congress who are doing everything they can to block a fair and accurate 
count.

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