[CTPP] Census News Brief

[Ed Christopher]

CENSUS NOMINEE PREPARES FOR CONFIRMATION HEARING
Plus: 2010 Advisory Panel Meets

As Dr. Robert Groves, President Obama’s nominee to head the Census 
Bureau, prepares for his Senate confirmation hearing, critics are 
seeking assurances that “statistical adjustment of the 2010 Census will 
not occur under his leadership,” according to a press statement by Rep. 
Patrick McHenry (R-NC), Ranking Member on the House census oversight 
subcommittee.  The hearing, originally scheduled for tomorrow, has been 
rescheduled for Friday, May 15, at 9:30 AM.

Rep. McHenry offered the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and 
Governmental Affairs, which will hold the confirmation hearing, four 
questions to ask Dr. Groves, who served as a Census Bureau Associate 
Director (a career position) during the 1990 count.  The congressman 
suggested that the nominee’s support for a statistical adjustment of 
that census – as a member of a nine-member expert panel appointed by 
Census Director Barbara Everitt Bryant – amounted to “political 
tampering [that was] well-documented and rightly rejected.”  The expert 
panel supported, 7 – 2, using the results of an independent 
quality-check survey to adjust the 1990 population numbers to correct 
undercounts and overcounts; Dr. Bryant agreed with the recommendation, 
but Commerce Secretary Robert Mosbacher rejected it.  Rep. McHenry said 
the President’s choice of Dr. Groves to head the Census Bureau “raises 
fresh concerns about the White House’s desire to manipulate Census data 
for partisan advantage.”

Rep. McHenry’s description of statistical adjustment as a partisan 
effort to manipulate the population count is at odds with the position 
of many Republicans following the 1990 census, when Secretary Mosbacher 
was considering whether to accept the Census Bureau’s proposal to adjust 
the raw census numbers, and later when the newly-elected Clinton 
Administration faced legal challenges to the Secretary’s anti-adjustment 
decision.

Before the Secretary rejected Dr. Bryant’s statistical adjustment 
recommendation in July 1991, then-Rep. Newt Gingrich (R-GA) urged the 
Commerce chief in an April 30, 1991 letter to statistically adjust 
“Georgia’s population figures to reflect the correct population,” saying 
the estimated state undercount of over 200,000 people might entitle 
Georgia to another seat in Congress and would “seriously dilut[e]” 
minority voting strength in the state.  Last month on a National Public 
Radio All Things Considered program on the census (April 20, 2009), the 
former House Speaker said Republicans “are very worried …that somebody 
will try to apply some kind of abstract, theoretical, statistical model, 
which will totally distort the system.”  Mr. Gingrich called the idea of 
using “statistical sampling” to account for people missed in the census 
“pretty whacked” and said he believed the Obama Administration would 
“try to use a statistical analysis to rig the game” after the census is 
finished.

Other Republican proponents of statistically adjusting the 1990 census 
included Sen. Lauch Faircloth (R-NC), Sen. Pete Domenici (R-NM), Sen. 
Connie Mack (R-FL), Sen. John Warner (R-VA), and Sen. Thad Cochran 
(R-MS), now the Ranking Member on the Senate Appropriations Committee. 
In an August 18, 1994 letter to President Clinton, 32 members of the 
Congressional Sunbelt Caucus from both political parties urged the 
Administration not to appeal a Second Circuit Court of Appeals ruling 
overturning Secretary Mosbacher’s decision not to adjust the 1990 count. 
  (The U.S. Supreme Court later upheld the Secretary’s decision, saying 
it was not “arbitrary and capricious” under the Administrative 
Procedures Act.)  The Sunbelt Caucus members wrote, “Failure to adjust 
the census count meant denying the existence of 4 million people.  It 
also has meant that federal funds did not follow the significant 
population shifts of the 1980s.”  The lawmakers concluded by saying, 
“The inclusion of the undercount numbers will finally make accuracy in 
the 1990 Census possible.  The adjusted census numbers guarantee that 
states, cities and counties will finally receive their fair share.”

Rep. McHenry urged senators to ask Dr. Groves how he would respond to 
White House efforts “to exert political influence” over the census 
process, whether he will reject the possibility of adjusting the 2010 
census “under any circumstances,” and why the nonprofit community 
organization ACORN should be a 2010 census “partner,” in light of “its 
pattern of criminal misconduct.”  The Associated Press reported last 
week (May 7, 2009) that Dr. Groves, in written responses to traditional 
pre-hearing questions, told the Senate oversight committee that, “If the 
director is perceived to be a pawn of one or another political 
ideological perspective, the credibility of the statistical system is 
threatened.”  The nominee said he would resign if faced with partisan 
interference from the White House, according to the AP article.

2010 advisory committee holds Spring meeting:  The 2010 Census Advisory 
Committee (CAC) held its bi-annual meeting at Census Bureau 
headquarters, covering a wide range of topics, including the status of 
2010 census preparations and early field work, the Communications 
Campaign, and the American Community Survey.  The committee, led by its 
newly appointed chairman and National Urban League President Marc 
Morial, heard presentations from agency staff on the progress of address 
canvassing and the 2010 Census Partnership Program, as well as plans for 
following-up by telephone with households whose forms indicate that 
people might have been left off the form or included by mistake 
(Coverage Follow Up operation) and for measuring the accuracy of the 
census through an independent quality-check survey (Census Coverage 
Measurement program).

Acting Census Director Thomas Mesenbourg reported that the handheld 
computers being used to verify addresses on the master list were 
“performing exceptionally well.”  Associate Director for Decennial 
Census Arnold Jackson said that the Census Bureau has been able to hire 
a “higher quality workforce” than expected; Associate Director for Field 
Operations Marilia Matos added that the agency had exceeded its 
recruitment goals for the address listing operation, which will end in 
July.  There are 150 Local Census Offices (LCOs) involved in field 
activities across the country this spring; the Census Bureau is 
completing leases for the remaining 344 LCOs, which will open in the 
fall.  Next year, the bureau will recruit 3.8 million people to fill 
about 1.4 million temporary positions to conduct the census.

Draftfcb, the prime contractor for the 2010 Census Communications 
Campaign – which includes paid advertising, outreach, and Census in the 
Schools – discussed its “creative” materials for paid advertisements, 
which recently came under criticism from the bureau’s Joint Advertising 
Advisory Review Panel and five Race and Ethnic Advisory Committees. 
Company representatives said they must begin to produce advertisements 
by August 1 in order to begin airing ads in January 2010.  Mr. 
Mesenbourg said he was “confident” the 2010 census advertising campaign 
would be effective and noted that “it is still early in the process” of 
developing the campaign.

The 2010 CAC unanimously recommended that the Census Bureau reconsider 
its decision to re-code as “unmarried partners,” responses to the 
“relationship question” that indicate a gay married couple.   (See March 
29 Census News Brief for more information on this issue.)  Last month, 
New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and City Council Speaker Christine 
Quinn wrote to Commerce Secretary Gary Locke, urging the Census Bureau 
to report data on same-sex married couple responses in the 2010 census, 
as it would for all people who report they are married.  The mayor and 
council chief said they were concerned that the current tabulation plans 
“could discourage [lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender] New Yorkers 
from fully participating in census efforts.”

The advisory committee also expressed concern about the decision not to 
include messages on the “advance letter” in languages other than 
English, a change from Census 2000, when the letter sent to all 
households in advance of the arrival of census forms included 
information in several languages (and a toll-free number) about the 
availability of in-language questionnaires.  The Census Bureau said the 
2000 census procedure resulted in some households receiving and mailing 
back questionnaires in English and another language, and that it 
received only 100,000 telephone requests for an in-language form as a 
result of the advance letter, a number it said did not justify the 
resulting operational difficulties.  Census Bureau officials said they 
would rely instead on partner organizations and advertising to spread 
the word about language assistance to limited-English proficiency 
households.

Did You Know?  For the average person, the decennial census (if they’ve 
thought about it at all) can elicit a yawn – nothing much exciting to 
consider.  Knowledgeable census stakeholders know better: The census is 
one of the nation’s most vital civic activities, important enough to be 
mentioned in the second section of Article I of the U.S. Constitution. 
There are many fascinating facts about the census; sharing them with 
other stakeholders might help increase interest in the census and 
mobilize more people to participate.  So we will start a new occasional 
Census News Brief feature, to share less-widely-known information that 
will help census stakeholders better understand census history and the 
daunting task facing the Census Bureau’s dedicated, experienced staff.

In the 2010 census, for the first time, the Census Bureau has a specific 
plan to contact traveling carnivals, circuses, and fairs, to determine 
where they will be on Census Day and to make arrangements to distribute 
census forms to their employees.  Traveling workers will be allowed to 
designate their “usual place of residence;” those who don’t will be 
counted as residents of the city in which their show or event is 
stationed on Census Day.  Who knew?


Census News Briefs are prepared by Terri Ann Lowenthal, an independent 
legislative and policy consultant working with a wide range of census 
stakeholders to promote an accurate 2010 census.  All views expressed in 
the News Briefs are solely those of the author.  Please direct questions 
about the information in this News Brief to Ms. Lowenthal at 
TerriAnn2K at aol.com.  Please feel free to circulate this document to 
other interested individuals and organizations.  Ms. Lowenthal is a 
consultant to the nonpartisan Census Project, organized by the 
Communications Consortium Media Center in Washington, DC.  Previous 
Census News Briefs are posted at www.thecensusproject.org.

-- 
Ed Christopher
708-283-3534 (V)
708-574-8131 (cell)

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