[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 84 (Tuesday, June 15, 1999)]
[House]
[Pages H4226-H4227]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




           KEY TO SUCCESS OF 2000 CENSUS IS LOCAL INVOLVEMENT

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 19, 1999, the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Miller) is recognized 
during morning hour debates for 5 minutes.
  Mr. MILLER of Florida. Mr. Speaker, we are less than 10 months away 
from the upcoming decennial census, the 2000 census. And the magical 
date is April 1 of 2000 would be conducted to count all the people in 
this great country, and it is essential to our entire democratic 
process that we have the most accurate census possible and one that is 
trusted by the American people.
  It is fundamental to our elective system of government because most 
elected officials in America are dependent upon the census. The key to 
the success of the census is local involvement; local involvement in 
the planning for the census, local involvement in the process of 
developing the addresses which is taking place today, and local 
involvement at the conclusion of the census to allow a quality check 
and verification that we have counted everybody the census.
  Sadly, the administration and most of my colleagues on the other side 
of the aisle are opposed to local involvement at the end of the census, 
the quality check that was provided in 1990, and they are opposed to 
letting local communities, the mayors and city councils and county 
commissioners and city managers and such across this country, to have 
one last chance to check their numbers because they say we are going to 
allow them to be involved before the census takes place, and that will 
solve all the problems.
  Well, Mr. Speaker, that is exactly the problem. That there are 
mistakes. We all make mistakes, and there are going to be errors in the 
census in 2000, and we need to do everything that we can to correct 
those.
  Now, this program that they are advocating is called LUCA, Local 
Update of Census Addresses, is a good program because it is allowing 
communities that want to participate to check addresses at this early 
stage. Unfortunately, not enough of the communities are involved in 
that, and that is a problem, but those that are involved are finding 
major problems with the Census Bureau.
  Mr. Speaker, there was an article on the AP wire service last Friday 
identifying exactly the type problem that we thought would happen. A 
lot of this is anecdotal because we are going to talk about it 
community by community as we go through this. This is Flathead County 
in Montana.
  ``Flathead County officials said they found errors in two-thirds of 
the first addresses they checked in data provided by the Census Bureau 
in preparation for the 2000 count. Rick Breckenridge, the head of the 
county computerized mapping project,'' and this is a fairly advanced 
community because they have computerized their records, so we should 
not have the type of errors that the Census Bureau has come up with, 
``said of the first 100 addresses supplied by the Census Bureau, there 
were 67 discrepancies. In one case, the Census Bureau had one address 
where he had 16; apparently, the Census Bureau missed an apartment 
complex, he said. In other cases, the bureau had addresses where the 
county records showed none.
  ``Breckinridge said the errors could lead to a serious undercount 
when the 2000 Census is conducted next spring. Clerk and Recorder, Sue 
Haverfield, said the errors occurred although the county gave the 
Bureau computer maps of its roads last summer. That information was not 
incorporated into the Census Bureau maps returned to the county 
recently. She said, `Frankly, with the technology now available, what 
they are providing is ridiculous.' '' Mr. Speaker, this is the type of 
errors we have got to catch, and thank goodness Flathead County caught 
it, and hopefully we can get it corrected. I encourage every community 
to be involved to catch these types of errors because the Census Bureau 
and the administration refuses for them to have a chance to look for 
the errors at the conclusion of the census as was provided in the 1990 
census.

[[Page H4227]]

  A program called Post Census Local Review, which the House passed, by 
the way, with, unfortunately, most of the Democrats opposing it because 
they do not want to trust the local communities to look at these 
numbers, I do not know what they are afraid of, but they will not allow 
them to look at numbers, but in 1990 it caught 400,000 errors. Four 
hundred thousand mistakes in the census were corrected because of Post 
Census Local Review, and they added 124,000 people that would not have 
been counted before.
  Mr. Speaker, this is strongly supported by most elected officials in 
this country. The National Association of Towns and Townships fully 
supports it. The National League of Cities supports it. The National 
Association of Developmental Organizations supports it. The only ones 
that do not support it, surprisingly, are big-city mayors, who are the 
ones who gained the most from it the last time around. Detroit added 
over 40,000 people in 1990, and now their mayor is opposed to it. 
Explain that one to me, because that just makes no sense that he is 
opposed to have one last quality check. That is all it is.
  Mr. Speaker, all we are asking is after the census is completed next 
year, end of 2000, to give them a period of time to review the numbers 
to see if any errors, because if those errors continue to exist, they 
cannot be corrected after the fact. So we need to get as much local 
input as we can and get the most accurate and trusted census as 
possible.

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