[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 45 (Wednesday, April 22, 1998)]
[House]
[Pages H2217-H2218]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                               THE CENSUS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. Maloney) is recognized for 5 minutes.


                         The Armenian Genocide

  Mrs. MALONEY of New York. Mr. Speaker, I rise to put on the Record my 
statement on the Armenian genocide on its 83rd anniversary. As we stand 
here on the floor now, the Armenian National Committee is hosting a 
meeting with Members of Congress to remember the genocide and to take 
action to make sure that it becomes part of the history of the world 
and is recognized.
  Mr. Speaker, I would like to take this opportunity to commend the 
gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Pallone) and the gentleman from Illinois 
(Mr. Porter), who are cochairs of the Armenian Caucus, for all of their 
hard work on this issue and other human rights issues.
  Mr. Speaker, I want to talk about a very important point, and that is 
getting a fair and accurate census, one that counts every American.
  There has been a lot of rhetoric about the Census Monitoring Board 
floating around. Once again, there has been little connection between 
that rhetoric and reality. I hope to set the record straight by 
discussing the facts of the situation and not the mythology the 
opponents of a fair census are trying to create.
  Mr. Speaker, my colleagues who oppose a fair and accurate census, who 
repeatedly call for spending billions more to assure that the 
inaccuracies of the past are repeated, have criticized the President 
for appointing a couple of, and I use their quotes, ``political hit 
men'' to the Census Monitoring Board set up in the 1998 appropriations 
bill. These appointments, they claim, show that the President is really 
interested in politics, not in science.
  The facts argue that just the opposite is true. The President has put 
forward a plan for the 2000 Census based on science, not politics. The 
opponents of that plan know they cannot win a debate on the merits, so 
they have tried to smear the President and the Census Bureau with 
innuendo.
  The President appointed politicians to the Census Monitoring Board 
because, from the outset, it has been clear that the board was a 
political entity. The President appointed politicians to counter the 
politicians appointed by the Republicans. It is clear that, from the 
beginning, the new leadership intended this board to be political.
  Let us look at the facts. When the board first appeared in language 
drafted by the Republican leadership during the negotiations over the 
1998 budget, it had four Republican appointees and just two Democratic 
appointees. That sounds rather partisan and slanted to me. At the same 
time, they tried to give the board subpoena power, congressional 
printing authority, and a host of other functions. In fact, they 
designed the board to look very much like a House committee, where they 
could control the rules of the game. In other words, they tried to 
create a political entity.
  We are fortunate that the President refused to accept such a 
blatantly partisan board. Even after the President forced the 
Republican leadership to accept a board that had four Republican 
appointees and four Democratic appointees, the Republican leadership 
wanted the board to operate with a quorum of four.
  Mr. Speaker, I would like Members to stop and think about what that 
means. A quorum of four would allow the four Republican appointees to 
meet without including a single Democrat. Is that partisan? Does that 
tell us what their agenda is? I think it does.
  The Republican leadership at every turn has signaled that this 
monitoring board is nothing but a political entity. The President has 
responded to these signals in the only rational way possible. When the 
Speaker of the House and the Majority Leader of the Senate appointed 
board members with political rather than scientific credentials, the 
President did likewise.

[[Page H2218]]

  What is different is that the President has a strong record on the 
science of this issue, and the Republican leadership does not. The 
President called on the National Academy of Sciences for advice. The 
Republican leadership has ridiculed the Academy as political because it 
does not like their scientific judgment. The President continues to 
seek the advice of experts through the National Academy of Sciences and 
through advisory committees. The Republican leadership continues to 
fret about what a fair and accurate census might do to their attempts 
to manipulate the redistricting process.
  Right now, the Census Monitoring Board is a political entity because 
the Republican leadership made it that way. But it does not have to 
continue in that vein. Let me put forward four principles that, if 
adopted, could make the monitoring board a bipartisan operation.
  First, all personnel hired to work for the monitoring board other 
than the executive directors, have to be hired with the agreement of 
both executive directors.
  Second, all work done by board employees has to be approved by both 
executive directors.
  Third, any press release, publication, or statement attributed to the 
board has to have the approval of both chairs before released.
  Fourth, any funds expended by the board have to be approved by the 
two chairs.
  If the Republican appointees on the Board will agree to these four 
principles, the board can proceed in a bipartisan manner.
  If they refuse to agree with these principles, it is a clear 
indication that their agenda is to conduct partisan political 
activities and try to use the monitoring board to legitimize their 
partisan agenda.
  I ask the Chairman of the Census Subcommittee to join me in calling 
for the Census Monitoring Board to accept these four principles.
  His willingness to join me in supporting these principles will also 
send a signal that he too is interested in fact and not fiction.

                          ____________________