[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 145 (1999), Part 3]
[House]
[Pages 4482-4483]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                              2000 CENSUS

  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. Madam Speaker, a previous Speaker talked about 
his concerns that the Medicare Commission is going to be unsuccessful 
today, and that is very unfortunate. I think that Senator Breaux, a 
Democrat from Louisiana, and Senator Kerrey, a Democrat from Nebraska, 
and other Members are advocating a way to save the Medicare program for 
the future. Ten of the 16 Members, according to the newspaper, will 
support a Premium Support plan, which is a way to really modernize 
Medicare and bring it into the 21st century. It is disappointing that 
they are not going to be able to get this supermajority, but we need to 
continue to try, because Medicare is too important a program to let 
fail as it is moving towards bankruptcy.
  But, Madam Speaker, today I rise to talk about the upcoming 2000 
Census. One year from this month the forms will go in the mail and we 
will begin the process of counting everyone in this great country. 
After wasting millions of dollars, the Census Bureau had planned for an 
illegal census plan to use sampling. The Supreme Court ruled this past 
January that they cannot use this illegal plan to only count 90 percent 
of the population.
  Thank goodness the Supreme Court ruled when it did, because now we 
will at least have an actual count of the population. But sadly, the 
Census Bureau is going to advocate a two-number census. They are going 
to advocate a number, as approved by the Supreme Court, where they will 
count everyone, and then they want to adjust those numbers and have a 
second set of Clinton numbers. So we will have the Supreme Court 
approved numbers of actual counts and then the adjusted or manipulated 
numbers of the Clinton administration.
  Wow, what a disaster we are going to face with this census. And the 
census, I think we could call it, the DNA of our democracy, because 
most elected officials in America are dependent on this census for 
drawing their lines to represent, whether it is a school board, a State 
legislator or a city council person. Billions of dollars are allocated 
by this money, based on the census.
  A two-number census is bad for several reasons. First of all, it is 
terrible public policy; second of all, it is illegal; and, third, it is 
less accurate. As far as public policy, the Census Bureau has argued 
for years that we should only have a one-number census, and now they 
have flip-flopped. Due to political pressure they have flip-flopped to 
go to a two-number census. It will add confusion and create a lack of 
trust in this system.
  Imagine that. I am from Bradenton, Florida. My city will have two 
numbers. Not just the city, every census block in the city; every 
census track in the city. A block may have 20 or 50 people. There will 
be two numbers, one by the Supreme Court approval and one that Clinton 
says, these are my numbers, use these. Talk about confusion. The Census 
Bureau was right, until they flip-flopped, and now political pressure 
has caused them to change.
  Well, I expect the Supreme Court will rule that the second set of 
numbers will be illegal anyway. Reading the ruling by Supreme Court 
Justice O'Connor in the majority opinion in January, talking about the 
issues of one man, one vote issues, talking about the technical 
statistical issues of taking a census track where we may have 20, 40, 
or 50 people living and then adjusting it, it is going to be torn apart 
in the courts and thrown out. So, again, they are proceeding down an 
illegal route.
  And then the statistics. I used to teach statistics for many years, 
and I have a lot of confidence in sampling. The problem is, when we 
start using statistics and sampling and adjustment for redistricting, 
we have to work with census block data. There are millions of census 
blocks in this country, and when we start drawing lines based on a 
block, whether it is a city block or whatever the dimensions are in an 
individual's area, and then those are adjusted, the accuracy is not 
very accurate.
  When they analyzed the attempt to do this back in 1990, they said it 
was less accurate, and yet that is what they are advocating, and that 
is what is so disappointing. Well, the Republicans in Congress have 
been advocating some improvements to the 2000 Census plan, and I am 
puzzled why Democrats would oppose ideas to improve the plan. It is 
just puzzling why they do not want to improve it.

                              {time}  1000

  For example, one proposal made is the Census Bureau is only going to 
publish the forms in five languages. They say that accounts for 99 
percent of the people. There are a lot of different languages out there 
representing a lot of other people living in this country that are 
going to have a hard time completing the form.
  We had a hearing in Miami. There are over 100,000 Haitians living in 
the Dade County area in Miami. They do not publish the form in Creole. 
So how are you going to count this undercounted area? How do you tell 
these people,

[[Page 4483]]

``Tough, you cannot get counted, or else if you call in we will find a 
translator for you?''
  What is wrong in publishing the form in Creole? They will publish the 
instructions in Creole, but they refuse to publish the seven-question 
short form in Creole. And that is true of all the other languages. They 
do not even do it for Braille. If you cannot see, what do you have to 
do? You have to call the Census Bureau and discuss it with someone on 
the telephone. Why will they not listen to some ideas to improve it?
  Another one that local officials should support is to give them a 
chance to check the numbers before they become final. They did it in 
1990. It is not a new idea. But they are afraid for people to check 
their work. They make mistakes. We all make mistakes. Why not allow 
local officials, mayors, city managers, county commissioners, what have 
you, to check the numbers before they become official?
  Conducting the census is hard work, and we need to concentrate our 
efforts into doing the best census possible to eliminate the undercount 
and get everyone counted.

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