U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE

61–509 CC WASHINGTON : 2000

OVERSIGHT OF THE 2000 CENSUS: COMMUNITYBASED APPROACHES FOR A BETTER ENUMERATION

HEARING

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON THE CENSUS

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON

GOVERNMENT REFORM

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED SIXTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

JUNE 28, 1999

Serial No. 106–63

Printed for the use of the Committee on Government Reform

(

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.house.gov/reform

(II)

COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM

DAN BURTON, Indiana, Chairman

BENJAMIN A. GILMAN, New York

CONSTANCE A. MORELLA, Maryland

CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut

ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida

JOHN M. MCHUGH, New York

STEPHEN HORN, California

JOHN L. MICA, Florida

THOMAS M. DAVIS, Virginia

DAVID M. MCINTOSH, Indiana

MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana

JOE SCARBOROUGH, Florida

STEVEN C. LATOURETTE, Ohio

MARSHALL ‘‘MARK’’ SANFORD, South

Carolina

BOB BARR, Georgia

DAN MILLER, Florida

ASA HUTCHINSON, Arkansas

LEE TERRY, Nebraska

JUDY BIGGERT, Illinois

GREG WALDEN, Oregon

DOUG OSE, California

PAUL RYAN, Wisconsin

HELEN CHENOWETH, Idaho

DAVID VITTER, Louisiana

HENRY A. WAXMAN, California

TOM LANTOS, California

ROBERT E. WISE, JR., West Virginia

MAJOR R. OWENS, New York

EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York

PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania

PATSY T. MINK, Hawaii

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, Washington,

DC

CHAKA FATTAH, Pennsylvania

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland

DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio

ROD R. BLAGOJEVICH, Illinois

DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois

JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts

JIM TURNER, Texas

THOMAS H. ALLEN, Maine

HAROLD E. FORD, JR., Tennessee

JANICE D. SCHAKOWSKY, Illinois

———

BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont

(Independent)

KEVIN BINGER, Staff Director

DANIEL R. MOLL, Deputy Staff Director

DAVID A. KASS, Deputy Counsel and Parliamentarian

CARLA J. MARTIN, Chief Clerk

PHIL SCHILIRO, Minority Staff Director

SUBCOMMITTEE ON THE CENSUS

DAN MILLER, Florida, Chairman

THOMAS M. DAVIS, Virginia

PAUL RYAN, Wisconsin

MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana

——— ———

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York

DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois

HAROLD E. FORD, JR., Tennessee

EX OFFICIO

DAN BURTON, Indiana HENRY A. WAXMAN, California

THOMAS B. HOFELLER, Staff Director

KELLY DUQUIN, Professional Staff Member

MARK STEPHENSON, Minority Professional Staff Member

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C O N T E N T S

Page

Hearing held on June 28, 1999 ............................................................................... 1

Statement of:

Jacobson, Jean, Racine County executive ...................................................... 24

Ladwig, Bonnie L., Wisconsin State representative; and Gwendolynne

S. Moore, Wisconsin State senator .............................................................. 12

Robinson, Nathaniel E., administrator, Division of Energy and Intergovernmental Relations, Office of Governor Tommy G. Thompson; Allan

K. Kehl, Kenosha County executive; and Dr. Paul Voss, Department

of Rural Sociology, University of Wisconsin at Madison, WI .................... 43

Smith, James M., mayor, city of Racine, WI; and John M. Antaramian,

mayor, city of Kenosha, WI .......................................................................... 28

Letters, statements, etc., submitted for the record by:

Antaramian, John M., mayor, city of Kenosha, WI, prepared statement

of ..................................................................................................................... 34

Kehl, Allan K., Kenosha County executive, prepared statement of ............. 47

Ladwig, Bonnie L., Wisconsin State representative, prepared statement

of ..................................................................................................................... 15

Maloney, Hon. Carolyn B., a Representative in Congress from the State

of New York, article dated December 2, 1998 ............................................ 57

Ryan, Hon. Paul, a Representative in Congress from the State of Wisconsin, prepared statement of ...................................................................... 8

Smith, James M., mayor, city of Racine, WI, prepared statement of .......... 30

Voss, Dr. Paul, Department of Rural Sociology, University of Wisconsin

at Madison, WI, prepared statement of ...................................................... 51

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OVERSIGHT OF THE 2000 CENSUS: COMMUNITY-BASED APPROACHES FOR A BETTER

ENUMERATION

MONDAY, JUNE 28, 1999

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

SUBCOMMITTEE ON THE CENSUS,

COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM,

Racine, WI.

The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:13 a.m., in the

Racine City Council Chambers, 730 Washington Avenue, Racine,

WI, Hon. Dan Miller (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.

Present: Representatives Miller, Ryan, and Maloney.

Also present: Representative Petri.

Staff present: Jo Powers, assistant press secretary; Kelly Duquin,

professional staff member; and Mark Stephenson, minority professional staff member.

Mr. MILLER. Good morning. The Subcommittee on the Census

will have its field hearing and we will start.

I apologize for the delay. My plane just sat at the National Airport because the crew had gotten in late the night before and had

to wait 8 hours before they could begin the flight. Normally when

you start a flight early in the morning, you are safe, but I was not.

Congresswoman Maloney had a similar problem, but she got in at

1 a.m. But we are here, and we appreciate your patience to allow

us to begin late and if necessary, we will juggle the schedule.

The process is we will have some opening statements by the

Members of Congress here this morning and then we will go to our

first panel.

Let me thank everyone for having us here today and my fellow

committee members here, and Congressman Petri joining us also,

and the distinguished witnesses.

I am pleased to be here in Congressman Paul Ryan’s district this

morning, and I thank him for requesting that we come here to

Racine, and for so graciously hosting this hearing. I would also like

to thank his staff for the invaluable assistance in making this hearing possible.

We began this series of field hearings in December of last year

with our first one in Miami and our second in Phoenix. Today’s

hearing will continue a commitment I made last September at a

hearing in Washington to reach out to those undercounted in the

1990 census in their own community. If we want a better census

in 2000, we must draw from the expertise and knowledge of the

people in the field.

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I am gratified to be continuing the national conversation regarding the 2000 census, and in the process, fulfilling the commitment

I made last September. Members of Congress do spend the bulk of

their time in Washington—it comes with the job. Through the field

hearing process, my colleagues and I have benefited greatly from

rediscovering, or even discovering for the first time, the distinct

characteristics of each region of the country—indeed, specific communities.

I know when it comes time to conduct a decennial census, it is

members of those communities that will make it happen. From the

many field hearings held in Washington, I know the Census Bureau, with a great deal of input from outside groups, has created

a new program and aspects of publicity in an effort to make the

2000 census the most accurate ever. These include local updates of

census addresses, partnership programs, a paid advertising campaign, Census in the Schools Program and improved promotion outreach.

Unfortunately, the Bureau decided against a post-census local review program, which proved very valuable in 1990. I am interested

in hearing how many local officials feel about inclusion or exclusion

of these and other programs and how they might be proceeding.

They will, of course, only be as effective as each community wants

them to be.

Some communities may even have their own twist on a specific

Bureau program to make it more effective for their particular area.

And that is why we are here today, to find out how Racine, Kenosha and the entire State of Wisconsin are working toward the most

accurate 2000 count possible, with and without ideas from Washington, DC.

Let me also state for the record, this is not a hearing to debate

the use of sampling in the 2000 census. The Supreme Court ruled

in January of this year that a full enumeration must be conducted.

Regardless of one’s views on the subject, we must all agree any

census will only be as good as its base count. As April 1, 2000

draws ever close, we must focus our efforts on achieving the best

count possible and stop wasting our time and energy fighting a

fight that has been settled by the Supreme Court and six Federal

judges.

The face of our country and communities change every day. We

must work hard, harder than ever before, to keep pace with that

change. The census is the very core of our democracy. It cannot be

the result of anything less than our absolute best effort.

I am certain that every witness we will hear from today has the

same goal: the best count possible for Wisconsin and our Nation.

As leaders in your communities, you are well aware of how much

your constituents are affected by your efforts. While the census

may seem mundane to some, you understand and appreciate its

significance and importance on the Federal and local levels. It cannot be done without your help and I look forward to hearing your

ideas and input, and I thank you for your commitment to this very

important issue.

At this time, I would like to call on the ranking member, Congresswoman Maloney from New York.

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Mrs. MALONEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you, Paul

Ryan, for hosting us. And again, I thank you and your staff for

your efforts to make our visit here pleasant.

This is an important hearing. I must say, we have been all

around the country. As the chairman said, we have been in Arizona, we have been in California for a different hearing and down

in Florida. But when I arrived here in Racine, I felt like I was in

upstate New York. In Florida, you know you are in a different part

of the country, but a lot of it looks very similar to my own State.

I think it is really important for the subcommittee to go out and

hear from local communities and to visit the places where the rubber hits the road, to hear from the people that are directly affected

by the census.

I only hope that in the near future we can visit a few more cities

in our oversight capacity. For example, my hometown, the city of

New York, was terribly undercounted in the 1990 census, as was

Congressman Davis’ great city of Chicago, also a member of the

committee. I know that Representative Davis and I would welcome

the subcommittee to our States at any time.

Today, we are going to be hearing from a number of distinguished government representatives and academics. As we have

heard in our other field hearings, the State of Wisconsin and the

American Indian tribes in this area also have a strong interest in

an accurate census 2000. As many of you know, the State of Wisconsin made extraordinary efforts in 1990—and I see my colleague,

Mr. Petri, who probably led many of those efforts—to ensure that

all of its residents were counted. And they should be commended

for these efforts. Wisconsin was a model for the Nation in 1990,

and I hope the same will be true in 2000.

Outreach and promotion efforts included gathering advice from

local officials, building trust in communities, creating census day

events and spending significant resources. Elected and appointed

local government officials, community and neighborhood organizations and the Census Bureau worked in a coordinated effort to

count Wisconsin residents. These efforts paid off. The mail back response rate for Wisconsin was 77 percent, 13 points above the national average. Dr. Barbara Bryant, the Director of the 1990 census, presented this State with an award for having the highest

mail back rate in the country.

In 1990, the undercounts for Wisconsin and Racine County were

0.6 percent and 0.7 percent respectively—among the lowest in the

Nation. Yet, despite these extraordinary efforts, the 1990 census

undercounted Milwaukee by 2.3 percent. Over one-half of Wisconsin’s undercounted community was located in Milwaukee. Almost 5

percent of Milwaukee’s African-Americans, 10,000 people, were

missed in 1990; 3.5 percent of Racine’s African-Americans were

missed. By contrast, only 0.8 percent of the whites in Milwaukee

and 0.3 percent of the whites in Racine were missed.

It is these different rates of undercount which are most troubling. The 1990 census was the most examined census in the history of this country. The total error rate for the 1990 census was

over 10 percent—26 million people were miscounted. There were

8.4 million people missed, 4.4 million people were counted twice

and 13 million people were counted in the wrong place. To make

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matters worse, the people missed and the people counted twice are

quite different. The people missed in the census are minorities and

children, American Indians, Hispanics and Asians as well as the

urban and rural poor. The people counted twice in the census tended to be affluent suburbanites, those who might be fortunate

enough to have two homes.

Today, we review how local communities are working for an accurate count and there are a number of components to a successful

census, which require active involvement by local communities.

Without these efforts, the undercount for 2000 could exceed that of

1990. However, as we listen to these ideas, we must keep in mind

that promotion and outreach alone will not solve the problem of an

undercount, which is much larger in poor and minority communities than in the rest of the world—or the rest of the country.

Let me mention a few ways in which local communities can help.

First, there must be an accurate address list—the Bureau cannot

meet that goal without the help of local governments. The Bureau

needs local governments to evaluate its list of addresses for the

communities. If the Census Bureau and local communities can

agree on the addresses to be counted, most of the controversy we

saw during local review following the 1990 census can be avoided.

Second, there must be a large advertising and promotion program. The Bureau cannot do that without advice from community

leaders on the kinds of messages that will convince people to participate. The Bureau also can use advice on the best vehicle for

these messages. Tailoring the advertising campaign to local communities cannot be done without community involvement.

Third, the Census Bureau must recruit and hire hundreds of

thousands of temporary workers. It is important that wherever possible, these workers come from the community being counted. The

Census Bureau cannot do that without referrals from individuals

in all economic sectors who can identify potential applicants.

Fourth, there must be language assistance guides and questionnaire assistance centers to help people, particularly those with limited English skills. The Census Bureau cannot do that without help

from community leaders in identifying the best locations for assistance centers and volunteers to help staff those activities.

Mr. Chairman, I have listed only four ways in which the local

communities can help the Census Bureau achieve a more accurate

count, but of course there are many more ways, and I know that

we will hear some very good ideas today.

However, what we have learned from past census’ is that these

efforts cost money. The majority in Congress won their case in

court and based on the statute, the Supreme Court ruled that enumeration must be used for apportionment reasons, which is the allocation between seats between the States. So in a sense, Wisconsin

won in that effort. Yet the court said that the use of a modern scientific count could be used for the purposes of distribution of Federal funds and the count for redistricting. And for the distribution

of Federal funds, this would, of course, help the State, and particularly the city of Milwaukee, which was undercounted quite dramatically.

As a result of the Supreme Court case, the census is going to cost

an extra $1.7 billion. Yet I know that even after spending an extra

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$1.7 billion, and even after increased efforts are made to boost local

participation, there will be a large undercount in Milwaukee and

similar places, just like in 1990. If modern scientific methods are

not used, the Census Bureau estimates that the net undercount for

2000 will increase by almost 25 percent nationwide. This means

that if it is not corrected, then these localities will lose millions in

Federal assistance. If the same holds true for Milwaukee, 1 out of

every 16 African-Americans will be missed. The Census Bureau

needs everyone’s help to complete what is an unbelievably difficult

task.

I look forward to today’s testimony and I hope we can provide the

Census Bureau with some very useful ideas of how localities can

work with the Census Bureau for a better count.

Again, I thank my distinguished chairman and all the distinguished members of the panel for being here today and for their

assistance and for their hard work.

Thank you.

Mr. MILLER. Thank you. We indeed have a great challenge to

conduct this 2000 census, but we can learn a lot from the past. And

in the 1990 census, as Congresswoman Maloney said, Wisconsin

had the highest mail response rate, and we learn a great deal from

that.

My predecessor in charge of the census issue is the current

Speaker of the House Denny Hastert. He had a hearing a few years

ago, and I think Mr. Petri may have attended and participated,

where they investigated why and how they were so successful. But

this year, we are fortunate to have on our subcommittee, Paul

Ryan, a new Member of Congress, but one who has a very special

interest because of the interest that the entire State of Wisconsin

has demonstrated in the census. So we are delighted that he helped

bring this hearing to Racine and to Wisconsin, and we are now

ready for your opening statement.

Mr. RYAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

First, I just would like to welcome everybody and thank you very

much for coming. I really appreciate the fact that Mrs. Maloney,

you were able to come here from New York and I really appreciate

the chairman coming here to handle this hearing.

We have done a good job in Wisconsin in participating in the census. We can do a better job, but I think there is a lot we can learn

from local officials here in Wisconsin on how we can do a better job

of participating in the census.

I see the census as a cooperative effort, a bipartisan cooperative

effort between local, State and Federal officials to make sure we

get the best possible number, because no one can disagree with the

fact that we need an accurate count and accurate census.

I will be brief with my remarks because we got kind of a late

start, but my highest priority is an accurate census. The importance of a census to our system of government cannot be stressed

enough. It was specifically provided for in our Constitution. The

founders of our country clearly felt that it was vital to ensure fair

representation for the citizens of this country. The census right

here in Wisconsin is especially important. Getting an accurate

count may mean a difference of as much as $24 million per year

in Wisconsin. That is $240 million over the next decade in Federal

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funding for the people of Wisconsin, at a minimum, according to

the General Accounting Office.

The census numbers are the numbers local communities will use

to plan for economic development, land use and school districts,

among many other things. These numbers will be used for the next

decade to determine available funds and allocation of resources. Because of this, we must focus our attention on ways to achieve the

best count possible for the citizens of our State.

Sampling is not an option, according to the Supreme Court. Our

Constitution states that ‘‘an actual enumeration must be performed.’’ The communities of Wisconsin must work together to develop methods that will help us achieve the best enumeration.

Programs focused on outreach and local government review, in

my opinion, will give us the accuracy we are looking for. Local governments know how important an accurate census is to the representation—just ask anybody. The local governments do not need

an incentive program to increase their desire to have everyone

counted, they just need the tools to make sure that it actually happens. The Census Bureau can do that by working with them to

focus on areas that are typically undercounted, to develop partnerships and suggest methods of outreach.

We must do everything possible to ensure that this year’s census

plan is on the right track. Among other things, the Local Census

Quality Check Act of 1999, which passed the House of Representatives earlier this year, is a program that would allow local officials

to check numbers after the census. It is a program that has been

suggested as a way to lay the foundation for a successful census

through actual enumeration.

The local updating of census addresses program is another one

that the Census Bureau is actually engaging in currently. The

LUCA program has been in use in cities across the country to provide a check prior to the census.

These are voluntary programs, and one of the purposes of having

this hearing is to raise awareness to the voluntary nature of participating in the census. It is our intent to have this hearing right

here in Racine, in southern Wisconsin, to raise awareness of all of

our efforts as local officials, to make sure that we participate to the

fullest extent possible in the actual enumeration in this year’s census. It means quite a bit to our communities. These voluntary programs allow the input of local government as a check on the data

obtained by the Census Bureau. Local government officials, in my

opinion, know their jurisdiction a lot better than officials in Washington do. They are in the best position to point out flaws in district maps or neighborhoods that are being undercounted. They will

help to ensure that all people in their areas are counted.

Other programs, such as outreach in the schools, churches, and

business communities, or the recruitment of census workers from

the community may also be helpful in ensuring accurate counts in

our communities.

I am anxious to hear from the witnesses here today. We have

also been doing some outreach with local government officials in

southern Wisconsin. About 3 months ago, I sent out a mailing to

all elected officials in southern Wisconsin in the First Congressional District, asking for their input as to whether or not they

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think input in the census would be valuable, would they participate, do they think it would be helpful. And I just want to briefly

mention a couple of those quotes after this mailing.

Mayor Jim Smith, who is going to be with us here testifying,

early on in response to some of the local efforts that we are trying

to get involved with the Census Bureau, said this: ‘‘We have had

a very positive experience working with the Census Bureau on

local update of census addresses for the year 2000 census. We

would anticipate it would be very beneficial to both the Census Bureau and the city of Racine to have an opportunity to review maps

and addresses after the count has been completed.’’ Sheila Seigler, the town clerk of Wheatland, said, ‘‘I believe the

very best attempt should be made to get an accurate count and

local review would aid that process.’’ In Evansville, Jennifer Petruzello, who is the city administrator

over there, we talked about this after our town hall meeting, said

‘‘The city would appreciate the opportunity to review survey data

and will work with the Census Bureau to ensure an accurate count

of the citizens in our county.’’ Throughout southern Wisconsin, local community leaders and

elected officials are eager and ready to get working on having an

accurate census. What we would like to hear from today is your

input, how can we best achieve this, what do you think of local efforts? And hopefully we can share ideas on how we can get the best

enumeration through for the 2000 census.

I would like to once again thank the members of the committee

for traveling here to Racine to have this hearing. I think that we

have a lot to offer in this dialog right here from southern Wisconsin

and I would like to thank all of the witnesses for coming to participate in this today and I look forward to everyone’s testimony.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. MILLER. Thank you, Paul. Congressman Petri, did you want

to make an opening statement? Congressman Petri is not officially

a member of our committee, but obviously he is a very important

Member of Congress. During the 1990 census, he was very actively

involved in Congress on the particular subcommittee that ran the

issue of the census oversight.

[The prepared statement of Hon. Paul Ryan follows:]

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Mr. PETRI. I just wanted to join Congressman Ryan in thanking

you, Mr. Chairman, and your senior Democratic member, Representative Maloney—you representing the Sarasota area of Florida and she Manhattan out in the New York City area—for coming

all the way out here to Wisconsin to listen and to receive the input

of officials in southeast Wisconsin about how to improve the census.

I really want to commend Paul Ryan for his leadership and initiative in organizing this hearing here today. I think it is a testimony to the respect and effectiveness that he has displayed that

this hearing is being held here in Racine today. And I think we

probably should be thanking Mayor Smith for making this beautiful facility available for us and also all of the witnesses for the

effort that went into their testimony.

Thank you.

Mr. MILLER. Thank you.

We will go ahead and proceed. Our first two witnesses will be the

Honorable Bonnie Ladwig and the Honorable Gwendolynne Moore.

If they would come up.

We had our first hearing in Miami last December with Congresswoman Carrie Meek, and we focused on inner-city issues and the

large immigrant population that Miami has, both Haitian and Hispanic. Then, when we were in Phoenix, it was really focused on the

American Indians. We had members of tribal leaders who testified

on that focus there.

So we really do learn a lot from these. This is to see what real

America is like. Now a lot of the people here are going down to my

district in Sarasota, FL for the winter and we appreciate that. So

we have a little connection here. Congressman Petri’s in-laws vacation in my area in the winter time.

But this is a Federal hearing of the Government Reform Committee. It is a requirement of our committee that we swear in our

witnesses. So if you would both stand and raise your right hands

and repeat after me.

[Witnesses sworn.]

Mr. MILLER. Please be seated and let the record reflect that the

witnesses answered in the affirmative. Now we will have opening

statements. Ms. Ladwig, would you like to begin?

STATEMENTS OF BONNIE L. LADWIG, WISCONSIN STATE REPRESENTATIVE; AND GWENDOLYNNE S. MOORE, WISCONSIN

STATE SENATOR

Ms. LADWIG. Thank you, Chairman Miller and the members of

this Subcommittee on the Census. Thank you for inviting me to

testify in front of you today and thank you for coming to Racine.

I am State Representative Bonnie Ladwig. I represent parts of

the Racine area. I have been in the State assembly for 7 years. Before that, I served on the Racine County Board for 12 years. I bring

kind of a different perspective because I have served as a census

crew leader in 1970, as well as a quality inspector for the 1980 census. So, I feel I am quite well versed on the whole census process.

I do not think I need to tell anyone here how crucial the census

is going to be for Wisconsin. With both Federal money and a congressional seat at stake, we have got to make sure that every perVerDate 11-MAY-2000 08:17 Mar 08, 2001 Jkt 010199 PO 00000 Frm 00016 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 E:\HEARINGS\61509 pfrm08 PsN: 61509
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son is reached with this count. And depending on how accurate the

census is, Wisconsin could lose $240 million in the next decade.

I know there are numerous plans already underway to raise

awareness about the upcoming census, but I wanted to bring up a

way that I believe would be very effective. People fear what they

do not know. We live in an age where the protection of privacy is

key to most people. They are very leery about giving out any information about themselves and their families for fear of fraud or

even identity theft. They need to know that this is not the case,

that is not what the census is used for. We have to educate the people about what it is, what the census is and how the information

is to be used. They need to know that this is not for some mailing

list that is going to be sold or for the FBI to keep tabs on them.

They have to know what is really on the line. And I believe that

if the people in Racine knew that millions of dollars in Federal aid

and congressional seats were up for grabs, they would be much

more likely to participate in the census. The message needs to

reach them that this is not a bad thing.

One of the concerns, I know when I had worked on the census,

was a long form versus a short form. We did find people who get

the short form are very willing to fill it out; there are not a lot of

invasive questions. When you get to the long form, it takes quite

a long time to fill it out to begin with, and a lot of the questions

are very personal. I know we frequently had to call people when

we did not get a form from a certain address, and if that did not

work, we had to go out to their homes. You did not go out just once,

twice, or three times. You made sure that you got every form that

you could get, that was humanly possible. So, I think it is very important to educate the people about how many people get the long

form and exactly what that long form is used for.

Another thing that I would like to mention is the important role

our children play in educating parents. I am beyond the small children age, but I do have grandchildren. And whether we realize it

or not, our children are a wealth of knowledge. Most of our children

are in the school system we currently have, and I believe this is

a perfect opportunity to reach a majority of families. If we educate

the children, they will take home what they learn, and in turn,

educate the parents. By getting the children involved, you can really make this a family affair while preparing the children for the

future, when they will be the ones filling out the forms. We will

be teaching them early to be responsible citizens. I know on election day, if the polling places are held in schools, frequently the

classrooms will come in. We will let them use sample ballots as if

they are voting. They, in turn, then go home and tell their parents

about it. The same thing could be done with the census, using sample census forms in the classroom. Just have a census within the

classroom and see then what the children will take home to their

parents.

I truly believe that education will be the key to getting an accurate count. If people know what they are filling out and why, I

think we will greatly increase participation. When you get children

and the community involved, the number will go up.

Local elected officials are also very important. They are dealing

with their constituents on a daily basis. Most communities have enVerDate 11-MAY-2000 08:17 Mar 08, 2001 Jkt 010199 PO 00000 Frm 00017 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 E:\HEARINGS\61509 pfrm08 PsN: 61509
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hanced 911 systems, which do have a record of all the homes, so

that you should not be missing the homes. You might miss somebody in the home, but at least you should be able to have an accurate account of every home, as well as school censuses that are

done locally.

I thank you for giving me the chance to testify in front of you

today and I welcome any questions you might have. Thank you.

Mr. MILLER. Thank you very much, Ms. Ladwig.

Senator Moore, would you like to make your statement?

[The prepared statement of Ms. Ladwig follows:]

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Ms. MOORE. Thank you so much, Honorable Dan Miller of Florida and Honorable Carolyn Maloney from New York. I certainly

would like to join our own First District Congressman Paul Ryan

in welcoming you here to Racine, and I am also happy to see Honorable Congressman Tom Petri here as well.

I was born in Racine, so Representative Maloney, I can assure

you this is not upstate New York, but this is the center of the

known universe. [Laughter.]

I am really privileged to be a member of the Wisconsin State

Senate. I am one of two African-Americans who serve in that 33-

member body, and I am the first African-American woman to ever

have served in the Senate in the State’s 150-year history. I occupy

a Senate seat that was created during the 1990 redistricting plan.

The map was drawn by a Federal court. And so I have a real particular interest in apportionment and redistricting as it relates to

representation of minority people.

As well as being concerned about this as a local issue, I am a

member of the Black Leadership Forum. The Black Leadership

Forum is a consortium of national organizations that represent the

African-American interests, including, for example, the National

Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the National

Urban League, the Congressional Black Caucus, the National

Black Caucus of State Legislators, Council of Negro Women and so

on and so forth. This consortium is chaired by Reverend Joseph

Lowery of Atlanta, GA and the executive director is Dr. Yvonne

Scruggs, who was formerly, I believe, the deputy mayor of Philadelphia.

In addition, I am honored this year to have been elected as the

Chair of the Wisconsin Legislative Black and Hispanic Caucus. Our

caucus joins those national organizations in advocating for increased electoral representation and additional resources for traditionally undercounted and underrepresented minorities.

Our caucus has a powerful interest in both accuracy, the best

enumeration possible, as well as the use of statistical sampling. We

do recognize, as Wisconsinites, the irony of wanting an accurate

count, if in fact that means that other congressional districts that

may be more populous would pick up a seat and perhaps we would

lose one. However, if these worst fears are realized, we are particularly concerned, because we believe that the minorities in this

State will endure and bear the most disparate impact.

I think it was Representative Maloney that mentioned earlier in

her comments that half of the people who were missed—albeit we

did a fantastic job of enumerating our people in 1990—half of those

people who were missed were from the city of Milwaukee, the city

which I represent, 30 miles north of Racine here. The second locus

point in the universe.

But in all seriousness, Milwaukee is a very diverse community.

Racine here has the second largest concentration of African-Americans. There are a great number of Mexican-Americans who live

here in Racine as well, and we are concerned that the redistricting

process be fair so that we can at least retain the representation

that we have and not endure a loss of State representatives; if in

fact our worst fears are realized, that we will not lose a congressional district here in southeastern Wisconsin.

17

There is one African-American State representative that represents the city of Racine here, and all of the other State legislators, State representatives, represent districts in Milwaukee.

Does that red light mean anything?

Mr. MILLER. That means about 5 minutes, but go ahead.

Ms. MOORE. So I am going to try to wind up. We are not debating the U.S. Supreme Court decision. Again, our caucus has an interest in the most accurate enumeration and the use of statistical

sampling. We are concerned that 77 percent of those in Wisconsin

who are undercounted are children, and we need this information

for accurate and critical planning for education, health care, transportation and housing.

And I guess the bottom line is that I would like to associate myself with all of the wonderful strategies that Representative Ladwig

has laid out, and the bottom line is that we need money for that.

I think that any of the strategies that would be employed ultimately will require face-to-face contact with our constituents. There

is no replacement for that. And that will cost money. I think we

ought to hire minorities in Wisconsin and other places around the

country to make those door-to-door contacts, to guarantee the best

enumeration possible.

Thank you for your indulgence today. I would be happy also to

answer any questions.

Mr. MILLER. Thank you. We will proceed to a question period.

We use the light for our 5 minute program. This is what we do in

Congress, it is how you keep on schedule the best you can, with our

little light system.

The focus of this is to try to get a better understanding of what

we can do to get the best count possible and see right at the local

level how we do that.

Representative Ladwig, I will just respond to a couple comments

you made. The long form is a concern. One out of every six gets

the long form. The short form is down to six or seven questions

now and that is what obviously the majority of the people will receive. The long form is very detailed and asks a lot of personal information. This may be the last time that we will do the long form.

It will be conducted next year but they are experimenting with

something called the American Community Survey and something

that would be done annually, each year for 10 years, and in effect,

accomplish the same information. But we are going to have it this

coming year.

One program that I am very excited about that the Census Bureau has is the Census in the Schools Program. It is going to be

run by Scholastic, Inc., it is contracted out, where they will contact

elementary school teachers, and they have a packet of information.

I went to the initial presentation on it with Secretary Daley, the

Secretary of the Commerce Department, and Dr. Prewitt, the Director of the Census Bureau, unveiling the plan. It is right now

only going to be presented to 40 percent of the school teachers in

this country and then the principals receive it for the rest. I think

it should be expanded to 100 percent of the teachers, and so we are

going to push to include that funding.

Senator Moore, you mentioned the funding. This is a very expensive process, we are going to spend over $4 billion this next fiscal

18

year. And this current fiscal year, we are spending over $1 billion

preparing for the census. And Congress has not been afraid to

spend the money. We know this is a Constitutional responsibility.

I know we have a lot of other needs for money, but this is one that

the Constitution Article I very specifically states for us.

Our concern is how do we reduce the undercount, especially in

the minority communities. That is the reason we were in Phoenix

and the reason we were in Miami and that is what we are looking

for here.

A couple of questions. Why do you think minorities do not participate in the census? They do not respond to the same rate of

mail. What are your opinions about why that would be the case,

and what can we do specifically? How do we reach minorities, say,

in your Senate District? Are they afraid to respond? I mean, you

know, there are some people, very conservative people on the far

right, that are afraid of the government and do not want to give

any information. What could you share on that?

Ms. MOORE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for the question.

I did not spend a lot of time in my testimony enumerating various specific strategies because I really meant it when I said I

thought the bottom line was door-to-door, face-to-face contact. I do

think that some of the things that Representative Ladwig mentioned were very important, particularly as it relates to people concerned about illegal alien status, language barriers, cultural barriers, the belief that the census will be used for purposes other

than enumeration, would be cross-referenced with other kinds of

public assistance records or warrants for arrests that may be outstanding. And it is only the reassurance of people who live in the

neighborhood, people perhaps who they have seen or run into in

the grocery store, people who speak their language, that have even

a possibility of breaking through those barriers.

Another thing is, I think people are barely literate, and so I

think when they do receive information in the mail, they are less

likely to respond. And there is a lot of trouble responding to mail.

You have got to get a stamp; you have got to take it back to the

mailbox. And if you are like Gwen Moore here, you do not get a

chance to respond to your mail as often as you do to an interview

that might present itself right there at that time.

I do think that the face-to-face contact is the only way to break

through some of the barriers and to use local people who can relate

to the residents therein. That is absolutely the best possible solution. I do not know if it is appropriate to offer people incentives or

bonuses for the correct enumeration, but if that were possible, that

would be something that I would certainly suggest.

Mr. MILLER. Ms. Ladwig, would you like to elaborate on that?

Ms. LADWIG. Well, I think what Senator Moore said, it is the

door-to-door contact, especially again with the long form, where you

have to go out and explain to the people what it is being used for;

no, it will not be used for W–2, it will not be used for the Sheriff’s

Department warrants or even for child support payments. And

using people from the neighborhood, I do not know if it necessarily

would work real well, because do you want your next door neighbor

to know all the personal information. But if you could use someVerDate 11-MAY-2000 08:17 Mar 08, 2001 Jkt 010199 PO 00000 Frm 00022 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 E:\HEARINGS\61509 pfrm08 PsN: 61509
19

body of the same nationality or race, I think that would be very

important.

Mr. MILLER. Thank you. Mrs. Maloney.

Mrs. MALONEY. Following up on the chairman’s question. Both of

you in your testimony said that many people in the hardest to enumerate populations have a general mistrust of the Federal Government. You mentioned that. Particularly Senator Moore, as the

Chair of the Black and Hispanic Caucus, what are you doing already to help with the census? What could we do to alleviate these

fears and concerns? And is there something other than explaining

the confidentiality that you just went through, Ms. Ladwig, that it

is only confidential information with the Census Bureau, is there

something more that the Bureau could be doing besides explaining

confidentiality and hiring members from communities as you mentioned? Can you think of anything else we could do to break

through?

Ms. MOORE. One of the things that I have thought of is a secondary way. The Census Bureau could use local programming,

commercials, and radio programming—particularly effective with

some of the smaller communities—to provide a very culturally specific message, to actually have actors say that these files will not

be cross matched with other sorts of files, like I think she mentioned the child support files. It is a very delicate issue, because

I love the idea of collecting child support, it is one of my favorite

ideas. But I know it is very intimidating.

I think it is important to use local talent, cultural messages and

to have the advertisement address those very sensitive issues.

Mrs. MALONEY. Do you think radio ads are more effective than

newspaper ads?

Ms. MOORE. Oh, absolutely. In the minority community, absolutely. I hope there is no print media here. Print media is out for

sure. Radio is the way to go, for sure, in local, smaller areas.

Mrs. MALONEY. It is my understanding that Governor Thompson asked for $750,000 for census outreach and that the legislature did

not meet this request. Can you explain why, when you said you

think it would be very helpful?

Ms. LADWIG. I think—— Ms. MOORE. We did.

Ms. LADWIG. You did do that. I think the 750 that you are referring to is the money the assembly took out for public campaign finance.

Mrs. MALONEY. Oh, really? Did he get extra money for census

outreach?

Ms. MOORE. I do not want to misspeak. The budget has not

passed yet. We are planning on debating it tomorrow perhaps, but

I do believe that the Senate version of the budget has moneys included for census data. You know, I do not want to bash our Governor here and there. Is a representative from the Governor’s Office here who perhaps can better answer that question? But the

Governor’s proposal, his budget that he provides to us, would need

to have included that amount of money. I am a member of the

Joint Committee on Finance and we took no action to delete any

funds that were provided by the Governor. So we should probably

defer.

20

Ms. LADWIG. I would also like to just mention, I think ways that

it could be addressed is local cable TV lets your local legislators put

on 20 second public service comments. I think that would be something that all legislators across Wisconsin could do. We all write

news columns for your weekly newspapers. We could address it in

those columns. We send out newsletters where it could be addressed, as well as letters to the editor.

Mrs. MALONEY. Ms. Moore, do you believe that the differential

undercount, which as you know is primarily children and minorities in both rural and urban areas, can be eliminated with the use

of modern scientific methods on top of enumeration?

Ms. MOORE. Oh, I am absolutely relying on the scientific sampling principles to bridge that gap. I do not think that with our

best efforts—and Milwaukee had a major effort done by people who

are very reliable, very responsible and this undercount was still

there. I do believe that the application of scientific principles does

provide the opportunity for the minority community to, in particular, get the financial resources that are so critical toward our

very survival.

If in fact Wisconsin loses a congressional seat, I guess it is my

understanding that we would also lose Federal funds proportionate

to that, and I think our Congressman Ryan mentioned earlier that

that can be up to $240 million over 10 years. I would be very concerned about the distribution of that loss throughout the State and

I would be very concerned if in fact Milwaukee, Racine, places here

in southeastern Wisconsin that bear a lot of the social burdens of

low-income poor minority folk, would have to realize the brunt of

that loss. So I am very relieved that at least a portion of the apportionment process is going to be more accurate so that at least resources will not be lost.

Certainly our State has just elected its very first Hispanic to the

State legislature and it takes about 15,000 votes to elect someone

to the State legislature. So any small undercount of minorities, ethnic minorities, is the difference between our having an assembly

seat or not having an assembly seat. And certainly I am the product of a seat that was created by a U.S. District Court to advance

the interests of more minority representation in our State. We are

not a Texas or a California or a Mississippi or Georgia or Alabama,

but our interests are the same as other ethnic minorities throughout the country in being counted.

Mrs. MALONEY. Well, my time is up. I must say I have enjoyed

tremendously being addressed by two women members of the legislature. There are always firsts. This is the first time it has happened in all our hearings, so it is wonderful to have two very informed members of the legislature here. We appreciate very much

your time and your input.

Ms. MOORE. And we appreciate it too. We sent our first woman

to Congress last time and so now only Mississippi has never elected

a woman to Congress. So, we are relieved not to be the very last

State to do that. [Laughter.]

Mr. MILLER. Thank you. One comment just to confirm and assure

the question about confidentiality. There are very strict Federal

laws as to what the census information can be used for. And it is

protected—it is very well protected. It cannot be shared with other

21

Federal agencies. And so I think whenever we go through this process, we should all be comfortable in assuring the confidentiality

and the privacy of that information.

Congressman Ryan.

Mr. RYAN. Thank you. Well, I too would just like to thank you

ladies for coming to us today. Thank you for taking time out of

your busy schedule, Representative Ladwig and Senator Moore, I

really appreciate your participation.

I wanted to ask you a question on local review, but first I would

like to touch briefly on the issue that we have been talking about.

As you know, I represent the First Congressional District, which

has large pockets and a concentration of minority members, especially here in Racine, and in Kenosha as well. So I, too, absolutely

believe we have got to do everything we can to make sure that

these populations are accounted for in the census. And if they are

not, that will dilute the representation, not only in Congress, but

it will dilute the representation in State and local government and

in Federal funding and all other important issues.

What we have found is that in a forthcoming study from the Census Monitoring Board statistical sampling will actually harm those

neighborhoods, will actually hurt those historically undercounted

areas. And what I am talking about is now that we have had a

chance to review the adjustment numbers from the 1990 census,

we have found that although sampling or adjustment actually adds

numbers back to the region and to the State level, it does not put

them back into those areas that are undercounted. So, for example,

in the area surrounding this city hall right now in Racine, it has

a large minority population. I toured it. I did a drive-around with

the police just a few weeks ago looking at the weed and seed programs and the community policing programs. Let us assume that

this is one of those undercounted areas. If this area has an

undercount rate such as 20 percent, what the adjustment will do,

based upon our new studies from the 1990 census adjustment, is

that although the 20 percent will be added back in with adjustment, it will add about 18 percent of those 20 percent undercounted people to towns like Burlington or Union Grove, not to

these areas, only about 2 percent to these areas.

So when we are trying to put people back into the undercount

in inner-city Milwaukee, with sampling we may end up actually

putting those populations back into Brookfield or Waukesha. So

what the experts have been saying, and in this forthcoming study

from the Census Monitoring Board, is that we are not going to add

them back into these historically undercounted areas. We will actually put them into other areas, thereby even diluting them even

more. So I would ask you to take a look at this stuff when these

studies become available and this analysis comes out.

But I wanted to ask you another question about local involvement, because as members of the local legislature, of the Senate

and the assembly, what do you think of the idea of having local officials having the chance of reviewing the census data after the

census has been conducted? Right now, we have the LUCA program, which is the local update of the census addresses, which is

taking place pre-census. Currently the Census Bureau does not

plan on engaging in a dialog with locally elected officials and

22

church groups and other groups, minority groups, to check the data

after it has been counted. We did this in 1990.

Do you think it would be a good idea to check the data locally

after it has been counted, but before the final data is submitted?

Ms. MOORE. Thank you for the question, Congressman Ryan.

Let me take your second question first. That may be a useful

method so that local officials who know of peculiar areas within

their communities or communities that have just experienced some

growth or building—I know that the fire department often knows

where people live and no one has any idea that they live there.

That may be a very useful survey prior to certifying the final data.

As it relates to your first question, I am not personally an expert

in methods of statistical sampling. That is why in my testimony,

I indicate that I am interested in the application of the best methods of scientific statistical sampling. It is a little bit difficult to understand or realize how statistical sampling would take more people out of, say, Milwaukee—— Mr. RYAN. What actually it does, because if you look at the sampling issue, it is very ineffective at the local level, at the block

level, at the neighborhood level. It may be more effective at a

macro level, such as the State level, but actually it is very inaccurate. Charles Schultz, who was President Carter’s economic advisor—he is a census participant and knows quite a bit about census

economics, census taking—has said that it is very inaccurate data

and that he encourages that we not use sampling for the local levels, for those historically under-utilized areas, because it does not

get precise information into the block level and the local level. It

will actually take those undercounted people and assume that they

live somewhere else, not in the areas that they actually live.

So I think our goals are the same, which are to let us count people where they live and let us do the best job we can to count them.

We know we have to do this. It is in the Constitution. So let us

move forward in a cooperative agreement to do just that.

Ms. MOORE. Mr. Chairman, if I might—I know that you do not

like to have these running discussions, but I am very interested in

the comments that the Congressman has made and I would like to

ask a question of him. I know that perhaps is not appropriate.

I guess I am interested in what the facts were in the Supreme

Court decision that led to their agreeing to statistical sampling for

redistricting purposes, were they not satisfied that these scientific

methods were accurate?

Mr. RYAN. It was for the purpose of apportionment, so the Supreme Court did not rule for or against redistricting and Federal

funding. The court ruling was narrowly focused around the sole

issue of apportionment. But I would be happy to yield to my colleague as well.

Mr. MILLER. The Supreme Court ruled on the issues of reapportionment that it was against the law—it was not asked to go on

redistricting and we can have opinions and it will probably eventually go back to the courts to get it resolved. So on redistricting, it

is fairly confident we are not going to have two sets of numbers.

But that will be for another court case and another day.

Mrs. MALONEY. Point of information and personal privilege. I

think to clarify the opinion of Sandra Day O’Connor—first of all,

23

they ruled only on the statute, not on the constitutionality part,

but only on the statute. And they said in terms of apportionment

that enumeration had to be used, but that was based on a statute.

Now this was a prime issue, as Mr. Petri knows, for Wisconsin. In

the last redistricting, there was a concern that there would be a

shift of a seat from Wisconsin to another State. That issue is gone

now. Wisconsin won what they wanted. There will be no shifting

in apportionment between the States. But it went further to say

that in terms of distribution of Federal funds and redistricting, to

use modern scientific methods were feasible. So in a sense, it ruled

for enumeration for purposes of apportionment, but for purposes of

redistricting and distribution of funds, it ruled that the use of modern scientific methods could be used.

So in a sense, Wisconsin won on the apportionment issue, and

they could likewise win on the second issue, which is the distribution of funds, because you were greatly undercounted in Milwaukee.

Ms. MOORE. But what he said was that we could lose under sampling because it is so imprecise.

Mr. RYAN. That is right.

Mrs. MALONEY. Let us get a scientific report on that. In my opinion, and from what I have read, Wisconsin would win.

Ms. MOORE. OK, thank you.

Mr. MILLER. Because of the time, we are going to keep moving

along. Congressman Petri, did you have questions?

Mr. PETRI. Just very briefly. I appreciated your comment about

the need to inform people that there will not be any use of any information provided for census purposes for other non-census purposes. We have to keep driving that message home.

Do you have any idea about when, how soon before the actual

census begins, the Census Bureau and other organizations that are

interested in an accurate census should begin the public outreach

and information efforts through radio advertising, fliers that elected officials send out, church meetings and sermons, educating children and so on? Should it be done when the people are out on the

street, or 3 months before, or should we be starting now for next

year?

Ms. LADWIG. I would think in the fall would be a good time, just

an initial education program and then back off again until after the

first of the year, because with the holidays coming up, it kind of

gets lost in the shuffle. And I think it would be important to let

people know exactly who does get the census information, what it

is used for and why it is important to have.

Ms. MOORE. That is a very good question, I think, Congressman

Petri, and I think Congressman Ryan talked about some focus

groups, and my colleague, Representative Ladwig, talked about

school groups. If you are going to have pastors of churches, heads

of organizations, especially those organizations that deal with great

numbers of minorities, the tribes here in Wisconsin, it might be a

good idea to start those focus groups early on so that they can help

gather folk.

Mr. MILLER. Thank you. Thank you both for coming, we appreciate your testimony and your official statements will be put in the

24

record also, but thank you very much for sharing your thoughts

with us today.

Ms. MOORE. Thank you.

Ms. LADWIG. Thank you for coming to Wisconsin.

Mr. MILLER. It has been our pleasure.

We are going to have a slight change in the schedule now. Both

Mayor Smith and Mayor Antaramian have agreed that Jean

Jacobson will go now because of her schedule. She will have to

leave. So if Ms. Jacobson would come forward please. She is the

Racine County executive.

If you would just remain standing, Ms. Jacobson.

[Witness sworn.]

Mr. MILLER. Would you proceed with your opening statement,

Ms. Jacobson.

Ms. JACOBSON. I have not said that since the day I was married

35 years ago. [Laughter.]

STATEMENT OF JEAN JACOBSON, RACINE COUNTY

EXECUTIVE

Ms. JACOBSON. Congressman Miller, Congresswoman Maloney,

Congressmen Ryan and Petri, welcome to Racine.

This is a place that we are very proud to call home, here in

Racine County, and I would like to thank you for the opportunity

to address you this morning on the upcoming census.

I understand that you are interested in examining ways the Census Bureau can improve its coverage and that you think one way

to do this is to gather ideas from local officials and community

groups. And let me tell you how absolutely refreshing that is. We

so often feel that there is a great distance between us and the Capitol Building in Washington that is more than can be measured

simply in miles. And it is really nice to know that you believe that

those of us who are really the closest to the people that you are

asking to count, we may have some good ideas about how we are

going to do it.

Believe me, we are extremely knowledgeable about the fact that

an accurate count of the population here in Racine County is really

extremely important to us. And with that in mind, my office has

determined that our best ally in our local effort is the University

of Wisconsin Extension Office. With their special training in outreach efforts of all kinds of things, they really have the skills that

we are looking for to reach everybody.

University of Wisconsin Extension is recognized across the State

as well as within the county as an unbiased and very highly respectable resource for local government, for community groups,

businesses and non-profit organizations. Mr. John Alliane, the community resource development agent, is here with me today, who

will be heading up this effort.

These people at the University of Wisconsin Extension are local

people and they deal with local people on an everyday basis. They

are very well respected in all of our neighborhoods and particularly

as we have just heard over the last few minutes, in those neighborhoods where perhaps a stranger would not be as well accepted.

What they have planned, and what I would like to tell you about

today, is what we call the Racine County Census 2000 Community

25

Education Program. The aim of the program is to impress upon

local municipal officials and community leaders the importance of

obtaining an accurate count of our residents. Their enthusiastic involvement in the process is, we believe, very essential to their success.

The key to this is education. The vehicle will be a forum to be

held in October or November of this year, a time line which the

other two ladies before me agreed would be a good time to start

this process. Those who will be invited to the forum are going to

include a number of people—local government elected officials, the

town clerks of the 18 municipalities, the mayors and aldermen of

our county’s two cities, the presidents and trustees of our seven villages, the chairmen and supervisors of our nine towns, as well as

the members of the County Board of Supervisors, business and

civic leaders, representatives of local non-profit social service organizations, the clergy—very key people especially in the minority

communities—educators and media representatives.

Now these groups represent our stakeholders and we want them

to all be included and be involved and very interested in this endeavor. Invitations to the forum will be sent in September to individuals from each of the identified stakeholder groups. Special care

will be taken to ensure geographic and ethnic representation from

all across Racine County. Every effort will be made to impress

upon the invitees the vital importance of the topic, and information

supplied by the U.S. Census Bureau relating to the fiscal impacts

of the census should really be very helpful to everybody involved.

We are going to have a number of speakers at this event. One

will be the University of Wisconsin Extension census specialist,

Dan Verhoff, and Shirley Warren of the U.S. Census Bureau. Mr.

Verhoff will discuss the fiscal impacts of obtaining a complete

count, various applications of this type of data and the difficulties

that people are going to have in trying to determine an accurate

count. Ms. Warren will tell attendees about the U.S. Census Bureau resources that are available to help everybody and to assist

local communities in obtaining that accurate count.

Now in addition, the Census Bureau’s complete count committee

structure will be presented and discussed. Attendees will be encouraged to form complete count committees at geographical levels

that they deem suitable and will be given the opportunity to modify

the structure of the committee to suit local needs. I think what is

important here is the committees, and the structure is going to be

formed by themselves and the people who are going to be involved

locally.

I can envision a number of different possible outcomes from this

process. Attendees might decide to form a single countywide committee; they may decide to form two committees, one for the western part of the county and one for the eastern more incorporated

areas; maybe one for the towns, which in Wisconsin are the unincorporated areas. They may well come up with either or an entirely

different idea. It is going to be their decision and the important

thing is that it is their decision. They are going to have some ownership in it, and therefore, there will be a greater interest on their

part in having it all be successful.

26

Regardless of the outcome and the structure that they select, the

University of Wisconsin Extension is going to function as the information conduit to the attendees. And they will assist these newly

formed committees by arranging and facilitating the initial meetings. When you get neighborhood groups together, they do not often

know how to facilitate themselves and get the job done, and that

is where the University’s expertise lies. And they also are very

good at connecting groups with resources, both State and Federal.

These committees will serve as a link between the U.S. Census

Bureau and the local community. And one of their most important

functions is going to be communication. And that is a subject that

we have talked about quite a bit this morning. We believe that the

better the communication between the Bureau and the committees

and between the committees and our citizens, the more likely we

are going to end up here with probably the best count that we possibly could have.

This program, and the support that the Extension Office will provide in the months that follow, will supply local leaders with information to encourage their continued involvement as well as providing them with sufficient direction to take action. I think we as

local leaders will hear really quickly what difficulties these committees are having and hopefully we can step in and help them out

before the census is over.

I do not think I have told you anything earth-shaking here. You

probably have heard and will hear a lot of variations on the same

theme as you conduct your travels. However, the same process will

result in as many different outcomes as there are communities, and

the ability for us to tailor our efforts to our particular circumstances is what keeps this from being a cookie-cutter process.

And it is hopefully going to ensure a very successful outcome.

I thank you for your kind attention here today and really appreciate you coming to Racine County. I have had the opportunity personally to testify in Washington at a committee similar to this, and

I have to say that this is really nice to have you come back to our

neighborhood to do this.

I hope that your visit here in Racine County is very pleasant and

that you will remember us as a very warm and hospitable community.

I do not have any creamer with me, but hopefully—oh, there is

some here. Please stuff your pockets with whatever is left.

And again, thank you, Paul, I am sure you had a lot to do with

coming here. It is really great to have you come to the chambers

here in the city and listen to us.

Mr. MILLER. Thank you very much, Ms. Jacobson. Because we

are adding another panel, we are just trying to hold ourselves down

to one short question.

I am impressed that you have organized this community education program for this October or November. Who took the initiative to do that? It takes planning and organization. You have already got your speakers. Who made that decision and proceeded

with it. Was it you or the mayor or—— Ms. JACOBSON. The decision to go with University of Wisconsin

was my decision. The University of Wisconsin Extension Office

here in Racine County is a tremendous neighborhood outreach proVerDate 11-MAY-2000 08:17 Mar 08, 2001 Jkt 010199 PO 00000 Frm 00030 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 E:\HEARINGS\61509 pfrm08 PsN: 61509
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gram where they do many things, including community gardens in

local neighborhoods. They do a lot with teaching people how to cook

their foods and stay within a budget, and they are very close to our

community. And what better organization here in our county to

take on this initiative. And when I called them, they just jumped

at the possibility. Already within Wisconsin they were teaching the

University of Wisconsin Extension staff the process of census taking and how this will work in the community. So it was just an absolutely perfect match.

Mr. MILLER. Mrs. Maloney.

Mrs. MALONEY. Congratulations on all you are doing. It is very,

very encouraging, and I appreciate really the effort of leaders such

as yourself in your State that are working on an accurate count.

Is your county participating in the local update of census addresses program, LUCA? In the last census, it was not particularly

productive and what they tried to do was incorporate it earlier.

There is no reason why you cannot get every address. They have

this program they have been exposing to cities and counties across

the country and I am wondering are you participating in this address check program of the Census Bureau?

Ms. JACOBSON. I am not familiar with it, I have to admit. And

I do not know whether the Extension Office is or not, but when the

last census was taken, I was not the county executive, so I did not

know what that process was.

Mrs. MALONEY. That might be something that you could add to

your efforts.

Mr. RYAN. If I could add, the mayor of Racine, who will be testifying in the next panel, Jim Smith, is implementing LUCA.

Mrs. MALONEY. Oh, he is, so it is being done through your mayors and not—— Ms. JACOBSON. It could be done through an entirely different

level of government.

Mrs. MALONEY. And I understand last time your legislature participated greatly in giving moneys and everything to get an accurate count or to donate services, and I hope they plan to do the

same in 2000. Are you aware of any efforts of the cities or the State

to supplement the efforts?

Ms. JACOBSON. No, those questions should be directed directly to

those municipalities.

Mrs. MALONEY. Thank you very much, thank you for your efforts.

Mr. MILLER. Mr. Ryan.

Mr. RYAN. Well, I know you have to get going, Jean, so I will just

be very brief. Thank you for coordinating this and putting this together.

The Extension is a very sensible idea, it makes perfect sense to

use the UWE system, which is a very, very impressive system here

in the State of Wisconsin. And thanks for participating in this.

I just want to ask you the same question I asked Senator Moore

and Representative Ladwig, which is in putting together this system and in working with LUCA, such as the mayor, do you believe

that it would be appropriate and wise to have local input on the

data after the data had been collected, but before it is finalized, to

make sure that the Census Bureau does not miss anything? Do you

think that would be a——

28

Ms. JACOBSON. Oh, I would certainly agree. I think it is much

better at that time than after. Once it is filed, it is very difficult

to re-address it, and some problems may surface at that time that

are very recognizable.

Mr. RYAN. OK, thank you.

Mr. MILLER. Mr. Petri.

Mr. PETRI. Just briefly, if you do not think of the answer and you

think of it later, I am sure the committee would be happy to hear

from you. This will probably be the tightest labor market in which

we have ever conducted a census. I was thinking back every 10

years. I do not think we have had one in time of national emergency or war in the past. An awful lot of people are hired on a part

time basis, quasi-volunteer basis, to go out and actually conduct

the count. Do you have any ideas or suggestions about how we can

reach out to involve people to actually do the count, since so many

more people are working or busy than ever before?

Ms. JACOBSON. You bring up an excellent point. We have been

very concerned about that in Racine County. Our unemployment

rate is extremely low. We have a state-of-the-art work force development center which could help in that regard and to use that data

base to hire people. I think we are going to find it very difficult to

find those people; however, I think there still are people available

who would be willing to work on a part-time basis without going

to work full-time. Perhaps mothers and even teachers in the off

season. I think there are a lot of innovative things that we could

do. But our work force development center could be of service in

our own particular county to work in that regard.

Mr. PETRI. Thank you.

Mr. MILLER. Thank you very much for being here today. We appreciate it.

Ms. JACOBSON. Thank you.

Mr. MILLER. Now if we could have Mayor Smith and Mayor

Antaramian—I am getting better.

Mr. RYAN. Mayor Antaramian representing the Armenian population.

Mr. MILLER. If you would let me go ahead and swear you in before you get seated. Raise your right hands.

[Witnesses sworn.]

Mr. MILLER. Let the record show that the witnesses answered in

the affirmative.

First of all, let me say, Mayor Smith, thank you very much for

letting me sit in your chair today. I never sat in a mayor’s seat before.

STATEMENTS OF JAMES M. SMITH, MAYOR, CITY OF RACINE,

WI; AND JOHN M. ANTARAMIAN, MAYOR, CITY OF KENOSHA, WI

Mr. SMITH. Thank you, Chairman Miller and the Congressmen

who are here today. I think it is an honor that we can host you.

I appreciate you having a hearing here in Racine.

I have some remarks that I would like to give at this time, because the census 2000 is very important to the city of Racine, for

a number of reasons. I appreciate the opportunity to appear before

the subcommittee to share with you the importance of an accurate

census count. The efforts the city will be undertaking to help enVerDate 11-MAY-2000 08:17 Mar 08, 2001 Jkt 010199 PO 00000 Frm 00032 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 E:\HEARINGS\61509 pfrm08 PsN: 61509
29

sure that all the residents of Racine are counted and to indicate my

support for the passage of H.R. 472, known as the Local Census

Quality Check Act.

The city of Racine is a wonderful community located on the western shore of Lake Michigan. The community is blessed with a diversity of ethnic groups that make up its estimated 1998 population of 85,552. This variety of ethnic groups within our community includes many of those groups that were considered to be

under-counted in the 1990 census. It is very important to the city

of Racine that the year 2000 census results in a census count that

is as close to 100 percent as possible. To that end, the city of

Racine is committed to working with the Census Bureau to ensure

that the goal is met.

As stated earlier, it is important that all people in the city of

Racine be counted in the year 2000 census. We know from past

census experience that there are segments of our population that,

for whatever reasons, either do not answer the mail-out questionnaires or do not respond to personal followup contacts at census

time. We recognize that we, along with the Census Bureau, need

to make a special effort to ensure that all the people of Racine are

counted in the census.

In the late fall of this year, I will be appointing a complete count

committee which will consist of a broad cross-section of people, organizations and media of our community. This complete count committee will work to establish a network of information regarding

the census, arrange for the distribution of materials for posting in

public places, develop a media campaign and contact as many of

our citizens as possible so that they are counted in the census.

In addition to the efforts of our local complete count committee,

we anticipate working very closely with the local staff of the Census Bureau to ensure that a successful census is conducted within

the city of Racine.

I would also like to take this opportunity to express the city’s

support for the passage of H.R. 472, known as Local Census Quality Check Act. A local census quality check was used in the 1990

census as a tool for local governments to help ensure the accuracy

of the census count. This was a particularly valuable tool for communities the size of Racine. Local staff was provided the opportunity to review addresses and counts before the census was finalized. I believe a similar local census quality check for the year 2000

census will be a very valuable tool in ensuring that as accurate a

count as possible is secured. It is especially appreciated that the

proposed legislation provides for a 45-day period for local review.

And I thank you for the opportunity to appear before the subcommittee today.

Mr. MILLER. Thank you very much, Mayor Smith.

Mayor Antaramian.

[The prepared statement of Mayor Smith follows:]

30

31

32

Mr. ANTARAMIAN. Thank you, Chairman Miller, and Members of

Congress—that was very good.

I, too, have a statement that has been given to you and I am not

going to read it. I am going to touch on a couple of areas in the

statement and then a couple of other areas I would like to touch

on as I have listened to the conversation.

First off, the LUCA program, we think, has been a wonderful

program. However, one of the problems that we have is that as the

program was implemented and explained to us was that you were

going to have a detailed feedback and a final determination. The

detailed feedback has now been eliminated. That goes back to the

process of the local unit of government being involved at an earlier

stage to review what exactly was happening and what the addresses looked like so that we could enter into this at an earlier time

and help to correct any problems that we may see. I think the

change that has occurred with that being removed is a mistake. I

think that one of the things this committee should look at is to try

to keep the number of things that you do small, but done correctly

and accurately. And so I would again recommend that at least for

the LUCA program, that you relook at that and make sure that the

local units of government are involved at an earlier time than what

is presently going to be happening.

I am going to touch a little bit on the American factfinder,

though I do not know that anyone has talked about that, on the

computer process. According to staff, at least my staff, as they have

been working through this process, what we have discovered is that

the program that is in place is not one that is very good. It is difficult to get information. The previous 1990 census look-up program that you had is much easier to use and, actually, we get a

great deal more information off that than we do off the new one.

So I would recommend, at least, that you look at those types of

things as to how we are able to generate our data and get our information.

I guess that my information is a little more technical as my staff

has started to work through some of these things and explained it

to me. And I do not necessarily wish to go into those other than

to say that for the city of Kenosha, it is very, very important that

the numbers be correct. It is not only because of the Federal Government and what you have, as to revenues that come back to us,

but it is also very important as to how the State determines revenues back to the city of Kenosha. The shared revenue formula is

based off, in part, a head count, so that if your numbers do not totally reflect the numbers of the city of Kenosha, it cannot only affect my Federal dollars, but State dollars that come back to me.

And so that becomes another issue to us, that it is important to

make sure that your numbers are as accurate as possible.

Kenosha has been one of the few communities that has challenged the State in the past on those numbers and has been successful in getting the State to modify its population numbers. And

it was done in such a way in which we used drivers licenses, housing and statistical processes along with neighborhood groups to determine how and where the numbers were that we needed to show

to the State that they were off.

33

So I think a combination of things need to be done if we are

going to get an accurate number.

And so with that, I appreciate you allowing me to come here

today and to speak before you.

[The prepared statement of Mayor Antaramian follows:]

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35

36

Mr. MILLER. Thank you very much and thank you again for making this facility available for us today.

You mentioned the local census quality check, or as was used in

1990, the post-census local review. The House passed it. Unfortunately, the administration is opposed to it, which we think is unfortunate. The National League of Cities, which I suspect you all

might be, or the National Association of Towns and Townships,

were very supportive of that plan because it was helpful in 1990,

and I am a little baffled why we do not want input.

But what makes it even more concerning to me now is, as you

mentioned, the detailed feedback process has been dropped. We all

say how we need local input and local support, and now the administration does not want to have the post-census local review or the

local census quality check to give local communities a chance to

check the numbers. Now even under the LUCA program, which I

am glad we are doing, you are not going to have a chance to have

the detailed feedback process because they say they do not have

enough time to do that. That is disappointing to me, too.

Let me ask a question. In your opinion, what is the most undercounted and hardest to count population of your individual cities?

I know you were in the detailed process in 1990 or certainly before

that, but who do you think would be the most difficult to count,

and maybe why, and maybe, what can be done to help go after

that?

Mr. SMITH. Speaking for the city of Racine, I think first of all,

the homeless population is very difficult, even in a city the size of

Racine. I know it is perhaps an even larger problem in our larger

cities in the Nation, but that certainly is a problem. And you know,

I think the Hispanic population in the city of Racine is the fastest

growing group in our city, and I believe, for a number of reasons,

that was undercounted in 1990 and it is going to be very important

that we get a correct count, as close to a correct count as we can

in the two groups.

Mr. ANTARAMIAN. The minority population in Kenosha would be

the most difficult at this time. And I would also add that the Hispanic community is the fastest growing population in the city of

Kenosha and that it as a group, if I were to break it down, would

be the most difficult at the present time.

Mr. MILLER. The Hispanic community, does it have its own

media, radio, newspapers? Are there organizations that work closely with the Hispanic population? I know when we were in Miami,

you have a Cuban and a Haitian population and there are very targeted areas. Is that true in these communities?

Mr. ANTARAMIAN. In Kenosha, there is a Hispanic community

group, a Spanish center that is a very cohesive group and one that

the city works with closely.

Mr. MILLER. The Census Bureau has something called the partnership programs, and hopefully they should be part of this partnership program because, as the earlier panel said, Senator Moore

was saying when you go to the Hispanic community, make sure you

have people from that community that are going out knocking on

doors. So, I hope they are already part of the partnership program,

but this is a program that the Census Bureau offers to any group

that is interested, to get involved in.

37

Did you have another comment?

Mr. SMITH. We have identified some of the Hispanic leadership

in our community already that are going to be involved in our committee and I think the churches are very important along with a

weed and seed program here in the city of Racine. They have a Hispanic liaison person there who will be working very hard to make

sure that the count is as correct as it can be.

Mr. MILLER. Your Hispanic population is Hispanic from where?

Is it from Mexico, Central America—is there one special area or is

it just—— Mr. SMITH. Well, I think the Hispanic population in the city of

Racine, the one area that we believe is the fastest growing area of

Hispanic population, is on the north side of town around St. Patrick’s Church. You are not familiar, of course, with Racine, but it

is not too far from where we sit here, but that is a high concentration of Hispanics. St. Patrick’s Church has Hispanic service, a

great outreach program and they will certainly be involved.

Mr. ANTARAMIAN. It is pretty much from around the country.

They are not any from any specific location.

Mr. MILLER. From what country?

Mr. ANTARAMIAN. All around—from all parts of this country, the

Spanish community has been moving into this area. Since employment has increased, we have seen more and more people coming

to this region to relocate. So it has been just, I would guess, a natural type of situation, but it is our largest growing population at

this time.

Mr. MILLER. How has your experience been so far in working

with the Census Bureau, or have you had much dealings directly

with the Census Bureau?

Mr. ANTARAMIAN. Again, I will speak in the sense of having discussions with my staff. In general, they have felt fairly positive

about the Census Bureau and working with them. The concerns

that they have had has been in some cases, some lack of training

that they feel is necessary for getting certain types of information

back to people, and also, as I said before, the concern about maintaining the programs that you have there and actually following

through with what you are telling us that you are going to do. That

becomes a concern for staff.

Mr. MILLER. Anything to add, Mayor Smith?

Mr. SMITH. Well, I just asked city development to give me our

latest stats on our population and we have looked at the white population in the city of Racine, which has gone down about 8 percent

from 1980 to 1990. The African-American population has gone up

23 percent, and other, which for the most part is Hispanic, has

gone up 51 percent. So, that kind of shows why it is so important

to make sure that the minority population is counted as correctly

as it can be.

Mr. MILLER. The forms will be in Spanish and five other languages besides English. We think it should be in even more languages, but it will be at least 5, and instructions in 30 some languages.

Congresswoman Maloney.

Mrs. MALONEY. I would like to follow up on a point that was

raised that the Address List Correction Act is not being followed

38

appropriately. As you know, in 1990, there was post-census local

review and according to Dr. Bryant, who was appointed by former

President Bush, it was neither cost-efficient, nor effective. And specifically, about 12 percent of the 124,000 people added to the census count were added erroneously and half of the units added were

in two cities alone—Detroit and Cleveland. And about 25 percent

of the governmental units participated in the program and less

than 20 percent filed challenges that met the specified criteria. So

Congress, in a bipartisan way, acted to approve it, and in a bill

that was passed by Representative Sawyer from Ohio and Ridge

from Pennsylvania, they passed the Address List Correction Act,

which created a pre-census local review process. It allows the Census Bureau to share its address list with local governments, which

they were prohibited from before, so that they are sharing, supposedly, these address lists. They should be sharing these address

lists with you, and the address list should be modified based on

local input. You should be able to get back to them and tell them

whether or not this list is correct. And the bill also called for an

appeals process to be designed by the Office of Management and

Budget. This is what should be implemented.

And if that is not being implemented, I want to know about it

and in fact, at all of our hearings, there is a representative from

the Census Bureau. Is there one here today? Is there somebody

from the Census Bureau here today? We have got one person.

Can you meet with the two mayors, and I want to hear, and I

am sure the members of the panel want to hear. That is the law.

They are supposed to give you the list. You are supposed to be able

to get back with any corrections and this is supposed to improve

the count.

I think one of the statements earlier by Senator Ladwig was very

important. You should not miss the home; you should be able to

count it; you should be able to count the addresses. The problem

is, in her words, you could miss who is in the home. But you should

be able to get the addresses. I want a written response from Dr.

Prewitt on how this is working and I want this sent to the mayors

because you should be able to use the process as it was bipartisanly

passed earlier.

I really want to get a sense of what is happening in your cities.

You mentioned earlier, Mayor Smith, that there were, you know,

some changes in the population. First of all, I want to know, have

you designated one person in your office to work with the Census

Bureau, so you have a direct contact that can help you and they

know who to contact? That would be helpful. Have you done that?

Mr. SMITH. There is going to be an alderman who is going to be

the chairman of that committee.

Mrs. MALONEY. OK.

Mr. SMITH. But for the most part, I think the city development

office and Dick Lensmeyer will be coordinating that as far as the

city of Racine.

Mrs. MALONEY. Can I ask you both a few questions? What is the

current population of your city?

Mr. ANTARAMIAN. The city of Kenosha is roughly 87,000.

Mrs. MALONEY. 87,000. And——

39

Mr. SMITH. I believe I mentioned that in my testimony, but it is

about 85,200 or so. Our population has decreased. You know, we

used to be larger than Kenosha not that long ago and Kenosha

passed us up because of some border issues we had here in the city

of Racine. We have two townships that surround the city of Racine,

the two largest townships in the State, and the projections are that

those townships will equal the city of Racine’s population by—— Mrs. MALONEY. But the city of Racine is roughly 85,000.

Mr. SMITH. Correct.

Mrs. MALONEY. Now what is the current population estimate of

the number of Hispanics, black Americans, Asians and other minorities in your city. Not a percentage, but do you have a number?

Is it 10,000, 20,000, 30,000, 5,000—an estimate.

Mr. SMITH. The estimates for the city of Racine for 1990 was

64,378 Caucasian, 15,551 black and 4,364 other. And we know that

the Hispanic population is grossly undercounted there.

Mrs. MALONEY. That was in 1990, but what is it now? What do

you estimate it is now in numbers?

Mr. SMITH. I do not have that number now, ma’am.

Mrs. MALONEY. Do you have a sense?

Mr. SMITH. I believe I could get that, but I do not have it here

with me.

Mrs. MALONEY. Do you have it?

Mr. ANTARAMIAN. I would roughly estimate the minority population in the city of Kenosha ranges between 11,000 and 12,000

right now.

Mrs. MALONEY. And what was it in 1990?

Mr. ANTARAMIAN. It was probably about 8,000.

Mrs. MALONEY. About 8,000, so it has been growing. Well, my

time is up. I have some more questions, maybe I will submit them

in writing, but anyway, I think mayors are great. You are on the

firing line taking care of people’s problems, and you are going to

be part of the real important link in getting good counts for our cities. It is vital to you, because, as you know, the funding formulas

are tied to senior centers, roads, bridges, houses, day care—everything.

Anyway, my time is up. The chairman is being tough on us

today. He wants to keep us on schedule so we do not miss our

planes back to Washington.

Mr. MILLER. Mr. Ryan.

Mr. RYAN. Thank you very much, gentlemen.

Mayor Antaramian and I just participated in the Kenosha parade

yesterday, so we are fresh from the parade trail.

I would like to start with you, John, if I could. You mentioned

your experience with the LUCA program has been less than perfect, a little troubling. Your involvement with the Census Bureau

has been welcome, it has been friendly, but that the Bureau omitted the detailed feedback portion of the process is the troubling

portion. In your opinion, given the fact that they have eliminated

this process, what do you think of the opportunity to participate in

a post-census local review to go over the data to help make sure

we get the most accurate count?

Mr. ANTARAMIAN. I think any opportunity we have to review the

data and to try to make it correct or to at least point out where

40

we think there may be problems is a positive. I still think, though,

the Census Bureau would be better served in getting this done and

moving it forward as they had initially proposed it. Though that

may now create some time restraints, I still think that would be

a better process to get a more accurate number.

Mrs. MALONEY. Point of information. As I said from the law, they

are supposed to be giving you feedback or allowing you to. No. 1,

you should be able to get the address list and you should be able

to correct it now. And if they are not doing that, then something

is terribly wrong, and as I said, I want a report from the Census

Bureau on what is happening here and they will work on it. As I

understand it, they have not changed the procedure at all. They

should be giving you that information and giving you a chance to

respond. And if they are not, they are not following the law that

was passed in a bipartisan way back in 1994.

Mr. RYAN. Just to add—actually to answer my colleague’s question about the Hispanic populations here in Racine and Kenosha— I have on my staff a former interpreter at the Kenosha Hispanic

Center, Theresa Chavez-Moore, who is here with us today, who

helps us offer bilingual services in our constituent service centers,

which are located here in Racine and Kenosha to these populations.

We are helping them, you know, with problems they may have with

the Federal Government, INS problems. But what I wanted to

point out is that Theresa has informed us that we do have a couple

of radio stations here—I am going to butcher this, but it is La

Tremenda and Radio Ombiente and local TV stations, Univision

and Galavision, which are based out of Chicago, which do serve the

Hispanic populations. Which to answer your question, Chairman

Miller, the vast majority of them come from Mexico, as far as nationality, but we do have Hispanic populations here that do come

from El Salvador and other countries.

But going into this extension, Mayor Smith and Mayor

Antaramian, I wanted to ask you; hopefully, we can work together

with the bilingual communities, with the Hispanic communities, in

the Kenosha and Racine Hispanic Centers to try and make sure

that these privacy concerns can be addressed.

One of the concerns I have heard is the immigration concerns.

A lot of the Hispanics in Racine and Kenosha are concerned that

this may have something to do with immigration policies—the census. It does not, but we need to do a good job of communicating

that.

But I wanted to ask you, Mayor Smith, because you also are participating in the LUCA program, what your thoughts are at this

stage about the LUCA program and do you think it would be advantageous for you to have the ability to, with the alderman you

are putting in charge of this, with your CCC and working together

with Jean Jacobson and others, to participate in a post-census local

review. Having a chance to look at the census data after the census

was conducted, before it is etched in stone, to make sure they did

not miss anything. Do you think that that would be advantageous?

Mr. SMITH. I believe that is critical, Congressman. I chaired the

1990 correct count committee for the city of Racine as alderman in

1990 and we had very little feedback from the Census Bureau at

that time. So if indeed this is a reform committee on the census,

41

we look forward to your cooperation to make sure that we have a

good count here in the city of Racine and Wisconsin.

Mrs. MALONEY. Point of clarification. Have you gotten the address lists from the Census Bureau? They are supposed to give you

their address lists, have you gotten those?

Mr. ANTARAMIAN. I do not believe so.

Mr. SMITH. I am not aware of that, unless it went to another department.

Mrs. MALONEY. Are they supposed to have been out by now? If

we have someone from the Census Bureau—are the address lists

supposed to be out to the local governments now?

Mr. MILLER. Well, he is not sworn in and he is not at a microphone. We will get it clarified.

Mrs. MALONEY. OK, I request this be clarified in writing, the

timeframe of when the address lists are supposed to go to local governments, and according to the law that we passed, local governments are supposed to be able to respond to the address lists and

if they do not like what the Census Bureau is doing, then they can

appeal that process. That is the law that I think Mr. Petri and Mr.

Sawyer and others passed.

Mr. RYAN. Well, reclaiming my time, I see the light is out. This

could be a troubling development if the LUCA program is not working within the spirit of the law that was passed. And if that is the

case, hopefully we can work together here in southern Wisconsin

to put together teams to focus on participation in the census. If

LUCA is not being implemented as it was envisioned, hopefully the

Census Bureau can rethink its position on post-census local review

and allow that local participation to take place.

Thank you.

Mr. MILLER. Mr. Petri.

Mr. PETRI. Just briefly and broadening the concern about

undercount or non-counted populations. You both represent sort of

a dwindling breed in America in some parts of the country, and

that is larger, medium-sized cities that are home to statewide or

national or even international headquartered companies. And one

area of non-count now are private American citizens working overseas. Congress has acted to make sure that they can vote; the IRS

keeps after them to make sure they pay taxes. Would it be helpful

to your cities if the people who work for Johnson Wax in other

countries, in Russia and everywhere else, who are American citizens, who are basically long-term residents of this city but who are

on assignment overseas, as there are tens of thousands at Exxon

and all kinds of other American corporations, that they could be

counted to and attributed back to the area in the United States

where they have permanent residence.

Mr. SMITH. Well, you know, that is a very good comment. I am

sure in 1990, we did not do any work in that area, but our business

community in the Racine area, manufacturing commerce, I think

would be very cooperative in polling the companies that are international to make sure that we do get those individuals counted.

I think the other area that I am concerned about, I talked to

Congressman Ryan about it, and that is the out-of-state prison population. I do not know how Congress is going to deal with that, but

I understand there was at least some talk about those individuals

42

not being counted as State residents, perhaps city of Racine residents.

Mr. RYAN. If Congressman Petri will yield, to answer your question, Jim, Congressman Mark Green, who is a former colleague of

Mayor Antaramian’s from the assembly, he is a Congressman now

from Green Bay, has introduced legislation to count prison populations in their home of record. Wisconsinites, we actually export

quite a bit of prisoners to other States such as Texas. He has introduced legislation to do that. Unfortunately, the Census Bureau opposes that legislation. I have introduced legislation to count domestic military personnel. Wisconsinites who are sent to military bases

right now overseas will be counted in Wisconsin at their home of

record. I have introduced legislation to make sure that that extends

to domestic military bases. So if you are a Racine resident, you vote

in Racine, you pay taxes in Racine, you are coming back to Racine

after you are done in the military, but you are stationed at Fort

Benning or the 82nd Airborne in North Carolina, then you would

be counted in Racine as a resident. Right now, we are not sure

where the Census Bureau is on that piece of legislation, but just

to give you an update on some of these dynamics, that is where we

are with that.

Mr. MILLER. One of the things I have found involved in this job,

I did not realize you export prisoners until we had a hearing—that

was a new one to me.

Mrs. MALONEY. We move them around the State. Where are they

going to be counted, upstate or downstate?

Mr. MILLER. I also find interesting the large Hispanic population

in Wisconsin. I would not have thought this far from Central America that they would be such a growing population. I know that is

true obviously out in Arizona, Texas, California and Florida, but

actually, you have a much larger Hispanic population than I have

in my congressional district in Florida. So, I found that interesting

up in this area.

Mrs. MALONEY. Ask them about the American Indian population.

Mr. MILLER. How about your American Indian population, do either of you have very much in your cities?

Mr. SMITH. Very small.

Mrs. MALONEY. But what is the number of the population, I am

just curious?

Mr. MILLER. Well, let me thank both of you for coming today and

again, Mayor Smith, thank you very much for making available the

chambers today. We appreciate that and we find this very worthwhile, very beneficial. Thank you very much.

Mr. SMITH. Thank you for being here.

Mr. ANTARAMIAN. Thank you.

Mr. MILLER. Our next panel will be Mr. Robinson, Mr. Kehl and

Dr. Voss.

If you will stand, we will go ahead and swear you in. Raise your

right hands.

[Witnesses sworn.]

Mr. MILLER. Let me again welcome you. I apologize for the delay

in getting started this morning and I appreciate you sitting

through the other panels. We will begin and we will start with Mr.

Robinson.

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STATEMENTS OF NATHANIEL E. ROBINSON, ADMINISTRATOR,

DIVISION OF ENERGY AND INTERGOVERNMENTAL RELATIONS, OFFICE OF GOVERNOR TOMMY G. THOMPSON; ALLAN

K. KEHL, KENOSHA COUNTY EXECUTIVE; AND DR. PAUL

VOSS, DEPARTMENT OF RURAL SOCIOLOGY, UNIVERSITY OF

WISCONSIN AT MADISON, WI

Mr. ROBINSON. Mr. Chairman, thank you. I would like to welcome both you and Congresswoman Maloney to God’s country, the

great State of Wisconsin. On behalf of Governor Tommy Thompson,

he asked me to specifically say those words to you, our very special

guests.

My name is Nat Robinson and I am administrator of the Division

of Energy and Intergovernmental Relations, and it is within that

Division that our Demographic Service Center is housed, the Demographic Service Center oversees, or we are the link between the

U.S. Census Bureau and the implementation of the census taking

process here in Wisconsin.

It is Wisconsin’s goal to have the best—when I say best, I am

talking about the most accurate and complete—census in the Nation. Today, I will outline Wisconsin’s efforts to help local units of

government achieve that objective and I will also summarize some

of our concerns as we approach census 2000.

Let me first talk about partnering. In conjunction with the U.S.

Census Bureau, the Wisconsin Department of Administration and

its Demographic Service Center and our partners to include the

University of Wisconsin’s Applied Population Laboratory and its

partners, we are administering several initiatives to enhance the

quality, as well as the accuracy, of the census 2000 process.

Efforts that are being undertaken, or have already been undertaken, include updating the address lists, updating census maps to

facilitate the process of census taking next year, as well as the

post-census local review process.

In addition, we are assisting local officials and their State representatives and encouraging them to participate in what we call

the preparation for census 2000.

We have also employed what we call a full-time 100 percent person who is devoting 100 percent of time to providing technical assistance, training and hands-on assistance to the Census Bureau

and local units of government within Wisconsin. This person works

very closely with the Bureau’s government partnership specialist to

establish the complete census count committees in Wisconsin, and

as a result of that collaboration, we have over 150 complete-count

committees to date and we are currently expanding those throughout the State of Wisconsin.

To make this program even more effective, Mr. Chairman, we

would ask that funding, if at all possible, be provided by the Census Bureau to assist with making sure that our preparation for

achieving that accurate and complete census count starting next

April 1 is made a reality. Or in lieu of moneys, we ask that more

government partnership specialists be hired in the field. We have

an excellent working relationship with our specialist, but she has

a large territory and even with our efforts, our combined efforts,

there is still lots of work to be done.

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Our census outreach specialist performs a variety of technical assistance, as I said, and other duties for the purpose of enhancing

the capability of the local governmental units, including designing

promotional material and distributing to the public things like brochures, along with meeting with any group who wish to meet with

us. All of these activities are geared on promoting that complete

and accurate census goal that I previously talked about.

To help us in this endeavor, we want to assure that Wisconsin

residents benefit from the fair share of the Census Bureau’s

planned public awareness budget. Governor Thompson has already

written to Dr. Prewitt, asking that Wisconsin receive our fair

share, which will amount to some $6 million of what we understand to be an anticipated $300 million budget for the census

awareness campaign. The fair share of $6 million represents about

2 percent of the total, which Wisconsin’s population translates into

about 2 percent of the Nation’s population.

Also, Wisconsin has asked the legislature to appropriate about $750,000, as was appropriated for the 1990 census, to further assist

with the preparation process for census 2000.

According to the current population estimates and projections

from the Census Bureau, Wisconsin definitely would have to work

very hard if we want to maintain all of our congressional seats and

continue our very strong voice in Washington. And by the 1990

census results, we know that we can do this in partnership with

the Bureau and with our partners throughout Wisconsin. As you

know, and as has been noted here today, in 1990, the census

showed that Wisconsin had the highest response rate to the census

questionnaire and one of the lowest undercount rates in the Nation. We had 30,000 undercounted in Wisconsin, so while we did

well in terms of being the first in those other things, obviously a

lot of work still needs to be done.

If the 2000 census were to yield the same number of undercounted residents, it would be equated to the city of West Bend,

Mr. Chairman, a city in the State of Wisconsin that has about

30,000 residents. So, that gives you a magnitude as to what the

30,000 population undercount does for the State of Wisconsin. And

of course, you have already heard about the number of Federal dollars over the 10 year period that would result from the undercount

if it were the same in 2000 as it was in 1990.

So, it is imperative that we continue these partnerships and we

are intending to do that.

Someone mentioned prisoners. Our position is that out-of-state

prisoners, for which we have contractual obligations and Wisconsin

pays the bill, should be counted in the home area from which they

came, and that is the State of Wisconsin. In conjunction, we know

that Congressman Ryan has a bill for military personnel. We would

ask that a similar advice that you rendered to the U.S. Census Bureau regarding prisoners be the same. We believe that if the State

pays the way for them, they should be counted toward our role.

In conclusion, these are the things that we would specifically advise for you to take back to the Census Bureau—count our military

in conjunction with an effort already begun by Congressman Ryan,

count our prisoners and those out of State where we pay the bill,

give money to supplement the $750,000, assuming that the legislaVerDate 11-MAY-2000 08:17 Mar 08, 2001 Jkt 010199 PO 00000 Frm 00048 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 E:\HEARINGS\61509 pfrm08 PsN: 61509
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ture does concur with Governor Thompson’s request as the legislature appropriated in 1990, and we ask that you advise the Census

Bureau to talk about another matter that was mentioned with the

first two speakers. We have to provide more trust within the minds

of those people for whom we want to complete the census forms.

That is critical. You have already heard about distrust and that

translates into a no response. We would urge that the Census Bureau find some way to help local units of government and States

to come up with our own response for improving that trust.

So we are doing a lot, but we have got to do even more if we are

going to achieve our goal—training, technical assistance support, financial support, all designed toward achieving the goal of a complete and accurate census for 2000.

Again, on behalf of Governor Thompson, thank you and thank

you, Congressman Ryan for bringing this forum to Wisconsin, we

appreciate that very much.

Mr. MILLER. Thank you. Mr. Kehl.

Mr. KEHL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, on behalf of Kenosha,

where I am the county executive. We very much appreciate your

time and efforts in coming to fine southeastern Wisconsin’s heat

and humidity this time of year. I cannot guarantee you it is any

better in December, but thanks for coming.

Mr. MILLER. Would you pull the microphone a little closer,

please?

Mr. KEHL. Sure. I have got a low voice anyway.

I am going to move from my text just a little bit, with your permission. What I think is a major issue here is how we can best coordinate our efforts at the local level with the Census Bureau.

Kenosha County has moved in this direction. Our land information office has been working diligently in more accurately computerizing census maps on the county geographic information systems.

In fact, the GIS is now devoted totally toward the census, because

we feel it is that important. The population is currently around

143,000 and we are experiencing a phenomenal growth rate that

we do not see lessening any time in the near future.

As a result of that, in response to a border and annexation survey recently completed from the census, Kenosha County will be

sending information showing boundary and annexation changes

that have occurred since January 1998. This is an ongoing project

that we will utilize with our local council of governments to bring

forward the best information that we can, because of the importance, obviously, it relates to the community and the dollars that

can be brought in for our operations.

Census counts are certainly used for reappointment, and an accurate and complete count is important to ensure representation in

Congress. And, I might add we have a great guy in Paul, and we

thank you for being here and bringing this so that at least there

will be a local forum and we can address those concerns.

Data from the census is powerful information for planning and

land use, schools, economic development and more, specifically delivery of service.

So, we do want to be actively involved in the census because we

feel that is a must.

46

Understanding fully well the importance of a complete and accurate count, Kenosha County has, as Racine County has, been working through our various divisions and departments, and using the

County’s University of Wisconsin’s Extension. A series of community meetings will be planned, because the more information we

bring forward and the more people we create the interest and understanding of what this is all about, the better responses we feel

we have.

Without belaboring, I just do want to say to you that we know

the importance of this and we are using the full extent of our resources to work with the Census Bureau for the accuracy of the

count.

And again, we thank you, at least from Kenosha County’s government, as others have, for your interest in being here and realizing you have a tight schedule. I have said all that I should say.

Thank you.

Mr. MILLER. Thank you very much. Dr. Voss.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Kehl follows:]

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Dr. VOSS. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate the

invitation to be here and to share my comments this morning on

issues of census accuracy in the upcoming census.

I am a professor of rural sociology at the University of Wisconsin

in Madison. I also direct a small unit called the Applied Population

Laboratory, which has been mentioned this morning. It is a part

of that Extension partnership in this State where a number of parties, within Extension and outside of Extension, are working to

make the count as good as possible in this State.

I have chosen to focus my comments very narrowly this morning.

I realize I am sitting between the esteemed members of the subcommittee and their lunch, so I am going to try to be quite brief

and focused.

I am absolutely convinced that State and local promotional activities, the census complete count committees, a strong advertising

campaign, curriculum materials and the countless other innovative

census outreach programs initiated by State and local census partners do result in a better census. And I am very encouraged this

morning by some of the testimony that we have heard that relate

to those local activities.

For the 1990 census, as you have heard, the State of Wisconsin

allocated substantial State resources for a successful statewide census awareness campaign and a grant program for local complete

count committees. I am certain the effective use of these State resources was an important reason why Wisconsin led the Nation in

1990 in the return of mailed out census questionnaires. Advertising, promotion, effective census outreach, these things do improve census response rates, I am absolutely convinced of that.

Sadly, however, the record shows rather conclusively that such

efforts do not appear to have much effect on census accuracy; that

is to say, on coverage and on differential coverage. On this matter,

I agree with Mrs. Maloney in her opening statements this morning.

Despite increasing resources allocated by the Congress to the census in recent decades and despite extraordinary efforts on the part

of the Census Bureau and its partners to narrow the stubborn,

unyielding gap in the undercount between the majority white population and race and ethnic minority populations, that gap persists.

The 1990 census was a particular disappointment in this regard.

While reducing the differential undercount was the No. 1 goal for

1990, the gap widened. This caused many observers at the time to

conclude that traditional census taking had pretty much already

achieved as much as it possibly can in terms of improving census

accuracy. More money, more advertising, more highly visible promotional campaigns, more complete count committees, more attention to making census questionnaires user friendly, more census assistance centers—none of this appears to hold much promise for

counting perhaps the last 2 percent of the people in this country

or for reducing the differential undercount below 4 percent.

As a demographer and as a member of the Commerce Department’s 2000 Census Advisory Committee, I have followed the debate regarding sampling and coverage improvement methods for

the 2000 census with considerable interest. I, likewise, am familiar

with the limited ruling of the Supreme Court on January 25. And

I know it is the Census Bureau’s intention to release, prior to April

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1, 2001, both the field counts from the 2000 enumeration as well

as the corrected counts based on census errors revealed by the accuracy and coverage evaluation survey, or the ACE survey.

I believe this to be a correct legal and ethically defensible intention. This would seem to me to be our only hope for census data

users who want census data with the least possible error.

I believe that accuracy in the census is fundamentally a matter

of fairness and equity for the American people and for the places

where they live. It would be my strongest hope that fairness in the

census not become a partisan or a parochial issue where elected

leaders and others hold positions about census errors, depending on

whether their State or their city gains or loses because of those errors. Errors in the census must be a concern to each of us.

The matter goes beyond which data are used for drawing political boundaries or are used in Federal funding allocations. Rather,

it seems to me, Mr. Chairman, that at its foundation, this is about

the methods we use to produce a portrait of the American people

and of the urban neighborhoods and the rural villages where they

live. It is my opinion that none of us should advocate a portrait

that knowingly excludes some people. None of us should want a

portrait that is not as absolutely accurate as we are capable of producing or a portrait that fails to reflect our fundamental American

ideals of fairness and equity.

In summary, Mr. Chairman, I believe local partnership efforts

are an essential strategy for improving census response rates. Regrettably, however, I believe the evidence shows that none of these

activities can close the overall coverage gap or reduce the stubborn

problem of differential coverage.

I thank you, Mr. Chairman. That concludes my formal remarks,

but I am happy to answer any questions.

[The prepared statement of Dr. Voss follows:]

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Mr. MILLER. Thank you.

Let me start with Mr. Robinson first. Is the legislature still in

the process of coming up with the appropriation that Governor

Thompson requested? Is the budget process still going on?

Mr. ROBINSON. Yes, it is, Mr. Chairman. That process is going

on as we speak. I just got an update prior to the commencement

of the hearing this morning, and I understand that at least one of

our houses has added, at least for discussion as of this time,

$100,000 to the Governor’s $750,000 request. So, we are still very

much in the ball game.

Mr. MILLER. And in 1990, money was made available and it was

made as a grant to local communities; is that the way it worked?

Mr. ROBINSON. It was a two-pronged process, Mr. Chairman.

There were moneys for grants and there was also moneys for campaign, a public advertising campaign as well.

Mr. MILLER. Well, it obviously helped get the mail response rate

up.

Dr. Voss, this is really not a hearing on sampling, but I am a

little surprised. You say you think sampling is the only way to

solve the problem. Do you believe that is true at the census block

level when you get down there? Will you say that, yes or no? Do

you think adjusted census block numbers are better than adjusted

numbers? Yes or no?

Dr. VOSS. You want a yes or no answer? No.

Mr. MILLER. So, adjusted numbers are not more accurate at census block levels?

Dr. VOSS. I do not think we know the answer to that. I think

there is evidence that error gets introduced at the block level. Just

as there is error in the block level in the census raw counts. There

is error at that very small level of geography and it is not solved

by something like the ACE survey.

Mr. MILLER. OK. When you get into redistricting and, you know,

you must work with block data, I mean you are working with very

small numbers, relatively small numbers.

Dr. VOSS. Oh, absolutely.

Mr. MILLER. And as you start adjusting that, the error becomes

magnified.

Dr. VOSS. Not necessarily. There are enormous offsetting errors,

you see, that take place. As you aggregate up, there is no question

in my mind that at a congressional district level, the corrected

numbers are better than the uncorrected numbers, at a city level

and even at a neighborhood level, I am convinced——

Mr. MILLER. Are you familiar with the adjustment that was attempted in 1990?

Dr. VOSS. Oh, absolutely.

Mr. MILLER. And do you feel that the adjusted numbers would

have been better than the unadjusted numbers?

Dr. VOSS. At what level of geography?

Mr. MILLER. At any level?

Dr. VOSS. Oh, yes, absolutely.

Mr. MILLER. Wisconsin would have lost a congressional seat if

they used adjusted numbers, did you know that? And Pennsylvania.

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Dr. VOSS. Oh, that is a different question. I understand that

question too; but yes, for every State, I believe the count would

have been closer to the true number of people in that State.

Mr. MILLER. How about the census block data in 1990, adjusted?

Dr. VOSS. No, I cannot say that a given block would be more accurate or less accurate.

Mr. MILLER. I will tell you, I believe it is less accurate. That is

the problem you have when you start working with block data. As

you know, you may only have 20, 30, 40, 50 people in a block

and——

Dr. VOSS. May I followup, Mr. Chairman?

Mr. MILLER. Pardon?

Dr. VOSS. May I followup on that?

Mr. MILLER. Yes.

Dr. VOSS. I agree with you, I mean I completely agree with you

on that point. But blocks are used as building blocks, as aggregate,

they aggregate up to neighborhoods, they aggregate up to villages

and towns and cities; so that I think that at the block level, we

should not wring our hands over the very, very small errors that

occur, but worry about the aggregation that happens at a much

higher level.

Mr. MILLER. We can assume away errors and that is nice to have

that ability to assume. But the bottom line is, anyone that draws

lines, and when the State legislature does that, they work with

block data. And when you start creating the errors I do not totally

buy that particular argument that they will average out in the end.

Let me go back, Mr. Kehl, in your community, do you have somebody designated to be responsible for the census yet?

Mr. KEHL. Yes.

Mr. MILLER. How much of this person’s time will be devoted to

census matters?

Mr. KEHL. As much time as necessary. He works directly out of

our office.

Mr. MILLER. And you have one full-time person at the State level

right now, is that right?

Mr. KEHL. Yes.

Mr. MILLER. And they will work together. Is there any organizational meeting where your person is meeting with the people in

other communities in the State?

Mr. KEHL. We do a quarterly meeting as it relates to local government bringing together issues, and the census is one of those.

So we will be meeting again in July and we are at Madison quite

a bit, which is our State capitol unfortunately for a lot of other reasons, but we live there.

Mr. MILLER. Who do you think is going to be the hardest to count

population segment?

Mr. KEHL. I am concerned—as was mentioned, the minority, certainly, but when we look at being as divested as we are, I become

a little concerned about our rural areas and that is why we are coordinating with local governments to make sure there is an accuracy there, sir.

Mr. MILLER. You say the rural areas?

Mr. KEHL. Uh-huh, yes.

Mr. MILLER. Why?

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Mr. KEHL. Well, because of it being so spread out and so diversified, and I think as we bring our council of local governments together and meet on these issues, the accuracy will come from that,

and that is the role that county government should play in coordinating those.

Mr. MILLER. Mrs. Maloney.

Mrs. MALONEY. Thank you. I thank everyone for their testimony.

It is wonderful, Mr. Robinson, to hear the efforts of your State, to

share financially and otherwise in striving for an accurate count.

And I appreciate very much your comments, Mr. Voss, and I would

like unanimous consent to put in the record an editorial from the

Racine Journal Times that ran December 2, 1998, which really mirrored many of the statements of Dr. Voss. May I put that in the

record, Mr. Voss?

Mr. MILLER. Without objection.

Mrs. MALONEY. Thank you.

[The information referred to follows:]

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Mrs. MALONEY. Mr. Voss, my understanding of Milwaukee’s experience in 1990 is that there were great efforts in time and cost

by local governments to increase the mail rate return. However,

the undercount in Milwaukee was well above the national average

and nearly four times the undercount in the State. Does this suggest that the Milwaukee example is useful for increasing the mail

return rate but not for reducing the undercount?

Dr. VOSS. The figure you gave, I will have to accept; I cannot

verify those. I think that it does. I think that Wisconsin did not

have a complete count in 1990, even though our response rate was

highest in the Nation. And I think the sort of disconnect between

achieving a high response rate and achieving a complete and accurate count, those two things are very different.

Mrs. MALONEY. Will more promotion and outreach reduce the differential undercount?

Dr. VOSS. No. That was essentially the gist of my testimony, that

it will not.

Mrs. MALONEY. So it did not work in 1990 and it is not going to

work now. There would be an undercount unless it is corrected?

Dr. VOSS. I think all of the evidence points to a yes answer to

that question.

Mrs. MALONEY. Some people believe that correcting the undercounts with modern scientific methods would boost the population

figures in other States more than in Wisconsin and could cost the

State a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. I have reviewed

a number of reports, including one that was written by the Congressional Research Service, which indicates that Wisconsin will

lose a seat in 2000 regardless of whether or not modern scientific

methods are used. Do you think the use of modern science will affect the number of congressional seats held by Wisconsin?

Dr. VOSS. I am sitting here with people who may have a very different opinion on that and I should guard my comments. It is my

belief that the ninth seat has disappeared. And what I mean by

that is, as the population shifts have taken place over the course

of this decade, that if you were to have redistricted say in 1998 or

this year in 1999, if the Census Bureau’s estimates are even close

to being accurate, regrettably for all of us, I think the ninth seat

is gone. Now this pertains to the Supreme Court decision—your

question relates to would adjusted or unadjusted numbers affect

our count and that is no longer an issue because of the court’s ruling. But I do not think it will come into play at all.

Mrs. MALONEY. Will it affect the State legislatures?

Dr. VOSS. The use of adjusted numbers rather than unadjusted

numbers?

Mrs. MALONEY. Uh-huh.

Dr. VOSS. The ‘‘A’’ word is frequently frowned upon. Yes, I think

that it could, but in very small ways, not in dramatic ways, but in

small ways.

Mrs. MALONEY. Some people suggest that modern scientific

methods will add errors into the census—we just heard those comments—regardless of whether or not modern scientific methods are

used. But isn’t the base line census erroneous?

Dr. VOSS. Well, of course it is, and all the coverage improvement

evaluations that have been made since 1940 show that. So, the cenVerDate 11-MAY-2000 08:17 Mar 08, 2001 Jkt 010199 PO 00000 Frm 00062 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 E:\HEARINGS\61509 pfrm08 PsN: 61509
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sus is in error. The ACE survey will not correct appropriately all

of those errors, but it will bring us closer to a true count of the population in all larger areas and cities and counties, and for the

United States.

Mrs. MALONEY. You are unique in that you have had extensive

experience in studying rural areas. Could you expand a bit on why

it is so difficult to achieve an accurate census count in America’s

rural and small town communities? And do you think the expanded

outreach and promotion efforts planned for 2000 will address the

disproportionately high undercount in poor rural areas?

Dr. VOSS. Well, one would certainly hope that it will. I hope that

our outreach efforts are not based solely on our cities. In addition

to the undercount being related to race and ethnicity, it also is

highly related to poverty and it is widely known that rural America

has large pockets of rural poverty and that the poverty is fairly

widespread in rural areas. So, there is a problem of undercount in

rural areas and I would hope that our statewide promotional campaigns here in this State and in other States address that.

Mrs. MALONEY. Can I ask one more question that is totally about

Wisconsin? I know my time is up.

We hear and we talked about extensively today about how Wisconsin’s low undercount rate of 0.6 percent was due to the outreach

and promotion, the State funds, the whole effort by the State. Can

you explain why Ohio, which did not have extensive outreach and

promotion, as your State did, also had an undercount rate of 0.6

percent?

Dr. VOSS. Is that question addressed to me?

Mrs. MALONEY. Yes, uh-huh.

Dr. VOSS. No, I cannot.

Mrs. MALONEY. I was looking at the numbers last night and I

said hey, they had the same amount and they did not do all the

things that you had done in the legislature. Thank you, very much.

Mr. MILLER. Mr. Ryan.

Mr. RYAN. Thank you. Just for the folks in the audience, I would

like to step back and talk about the sampling adjustment and how

it works with the higher aggregation levels. I think it is safe to say

that the higher the aggregation, the more accurate the adjustment

may be; but when you get down to the lower aggregate levels, experts have agreed that adjustment is much less accurate for towns

and cities and areas with populations below 150,000. It is important to note that almost every town in Wisconsin has a population

below 150,000. There is not one town in the First Congressional

District that exceeds population of 150,000. We just have a handful

of cities that are actually that large.

So this adjustment question, as it relates to Wisconsin, suggests

that according to expert witnesses and reports, that it is less accurate at those levels below 150,000.

But I wanted to go back to the block data. Allan Kehl, county executive, I wanted to ask you how important is the block data in

what you do and in your estimates and in your population counting

and then, how does it affect your job and the services you deliver?

And also, Mr. Robinson, I wanted to ask you how the block data

affects us to be doing redistricting for the assembly seats. Senator

Moore on earlier testimony said it takes about 15,000 votes to

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swing an election in the State assembly, and we just elected the

first Hispanic to the State assembly very recently. And with a

15,000 vote swing, isn’t that accuracy at the block level in those

historically undercounted areas so important?

I will go to Mr. Kehl first.

Mr. KEHL. Thank you, Mr. Congressman. Extremely. When you

look at planning and you look at land use and you look at development, where should it start—certainly in the block concept. It gives

us an overall perspective and we build from there. To me, that is

the most important. And especially in the rural setting, which, as

you look at Wisconsin, even in southeastern Wisconsin, with the

phenomenal growth rate we are experiencing, we are still rural.

And as a result, if you take that concept, when you get to the lower

level, we see great success and more accuracy. That is my opinion,

sir.

Mr. RYAN. Mr. Robinson.

Mr. ROBINSON. I, too, agree. I believe that the count should be

a verification at the lowest level possible, the most manageable

level, and that is block. And you should build from there. Absolutely, I agree with the county executive.

Mr. RYAN. Do you think that getting the most accurate count at

the local level down to the block level is our best chance of getting

a better count for those historically undercounted areas so we can

get that minority representation into the minority neighborhoods

that are actually undercounted?

Mr. ROBINSON. Absolutely. And I was very struck by the testimony of Representative Ladwig, in terms of you have got to go door

to door, house to house, face to face. Those activities, coupled with

doing it at that very basic level, are absolutely critical if we are

ever going to achieve that accurate and complete count that we

constantly talk about—absolutely.

Mr. RYAN. Dr. Voss, I would like to ask you briefly. Do you agree

with statements by other experts that when you get the aggregation down to the lower level, the block level, towns below 150,000,

that it is less accurate, and also do you think that post-census local

review—I notice in your testimony, you advocated several of the

things that we are trying to do to promote the census, promote the

enumeration—do you think that post-census local review, in addition to these efforts, is something that will help us get a better

number?

Dr. VOSS. Well, there are two questions there. I think you know

my answer to the first one. I am not so worried about the very,

very small and I will say close to trivial errors that occur at the

block level. It is when you have populations in neighborhoods that

are counted by 5 percent that it seems to me that all of us ought

to start getting concerned and figure out ways of correcting for

that. The block numbers will have error; some will be incorrectly

increased and some will be incorrectly decreased. But you lose a lot

of that inaccuracy as you aggregate up and it is at aggregations,

it is at neighborhoods, it is for communities, it is for villages, it is

for towns, that those data become important. So, I guess I disagree

with the two gentlemen to my left on that.

With respect to post-census local review, I am really pained in

trying to come up with an answer on that one. I understand the

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1990 program and how it worked extraordinarily well, and the disappointments that existed here in Wisconsin when that program

was concluded. We, in the unit that I said that I was involved with

and Nat Robinson’s unit in State government, jointly, we put on

over 40 workshops trying to educate our local communities on the

ground rules for challenging their numbers in post-census local review and how to go about that in the very brief time that they had.

For the most part, I think local review was deemed as a big disappointment. I do not remember the exact percentage, I think it

was 18 or 19 percent of eligible communities took part in post-census local review; well over 80 percent did not, despite this effort to

get involvement.

I think, just very briefly, I can say it very quickly, the program

sounds wonderful and to ask a mayor, would you not like to see

your numbers before they are certified as final—you are not going

to get a no answer to that. But for the Census Bureau, and I think

for your subcommittee, there are some real issues that have to be

addressed. The Census Bureau, for one, is on a very, very tight

time schedule to get the certified counts out by December 31 so

that if the subcommittee, through legislation, is successful in requiring a post-census review, you are going to have to work with

the Census Bureau to figure out where the time and the money is

going to come from to fit that into this very tight time schedule.

That is why the Census Bureau decided to try this time around to

front end load that process, to put in the local review of census addresses and block counts before the count, rather than after the

count, to give more time, in fact, to that process.

Three, I will say that throughout the country, I think post-census

local review was not a terribly effective program. It did not find all

that many housing units or people, but it did correct geographic

misallocation, which is certainly important.

I think the Census Bureau’s largest fear for post-census local review is that the overwhelming majority of communities, the 39,000

or so general purpose governmental units, the majority of those

that have chosen not to participate in LUCA, for whatever reasons,

but who are not participating in this program, this front-loaded

program, will, in a post-census local review, weigh in and they will

be doing it for the first time and they will not have understood the

sort of rules that surround how one goes about comparing the Census Bureau’s addresses and your local addresses, and the Census

Bureau will be overwhelmed in terms of the requirement to respond back to those communities.

I much favor the front-end loading, it seems to me that it makes

sense, but I know that LUCA is not working as successfully as the

Bureau was hoping.

Mr. RYAN. Yes, that is a very interesting point. And I think those

of us on the committee who support front and back end, you know,

LUCA and post-census local review, as the best way of doing it,

that is a very compelling point, that there are 39,000 communities

who, by their own choice, because it is a voluntary program, did

not participate in the LUCA program. I guess where we may disagree is that I do not necessarily see if those 39,000 communities

have a chance of participating in post-census local review as really

a problem, but as an opportunity to get a chance at going in and

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really getting the accurate count. Does it mean more work for the

Census Bureau? Of course, it does.

Dr. VOSS. Sure.

Mr. RYAN. Does it help us get to the accuracy of counting those

neighborhoods, of counting the geography so those neighborhoods,

those historically undercounted neighborhoods, actually have the

kind of representation that they deserve? Absolutely.

Dr. VOSS. Yeah.

Mr. RYAN. Congressman Tom Barrett and I are planning on

doing some bipartisan promotion of the census around southeastern

Wisconsin in these areas that are historically undercounted. We

are hoping that we can get post-census local review in here so we

can get to those neighborhoods that are historically undercounted.

One more point I just wanted to add before closing, I see my time

has expired, is that in Wisconsin, when we are talking about reaching this threshold where aggregation of statistical adjustment is

preferred or better, that threshold is at that 150,000 town population level and that puts just about every single town and city in

this State out of the threshold.

So, I just wanted to thank each of you for coming and participating. Did you want to add something there, Nathaniel?

Mr. ROBINSON. If I may, Mr. Chairman, I want to comment on

the pre- and post-review of census data. One of the things that we

learned in the updated lists, we sent a confirming letter to city

clerks, all of them, stating the importance of their money being tied

to this base. A lot of them are busy. They do not really realize for

the next 10 years, that it is the base not only for Federal money,

but local revenue sharing is also going to be tied to that. It does

make a difference. What is my point? It may be in the message,

Paul. Paul and I are good partners. We can disagree agreeably

even in a public forum and still be friends and go out and have a

beer. I think it is in the message in terms of letting them know

the impact for the next 10 years, their estimates from 2001 on to

the next census is going to be based on that. So, if you hit home

where it really counts, it does make a difference in their grasping

the importance of it. So I think it is critical to keep both. And the

way we sell that in terms of the money impact is the way to go.

Mr. RYAN. Very good point.

Mr. Kehl.

Mr. KEHL. Is there something wrong with a check and balance

on the post-census? Is there something wrong with accountability?

What am I missing here? I think this is what this is supposed to

be about.

You know what happened 10 years ago? I guess I was not in the

picture. I am very concerned about that as we represent our communities. And although what the good doctor has stated may have

been in the past, believe me, there are government officials today

at your level, certainly down to ours, who are very concerned about

this. I believe in post-census, I believe in the block counts because

again, as you represented Congressman Ryan, we do not have a

community here that is above 150,000 folks. And this is very important to us. And this is pretty much mainstream Nation here. It

does not get any more Midwest. Thank you.

Mr. RYAN. Thank you.

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Mr. MILLER. Mr. Petri.

Mr. PETRI. Thank you. Just maybe to wrap this up, in painting

a little bit of a black and white picture when it is really probably

not that way, we certainly want to use modern telecommunications,

printing, tabulation, every other sort of modern thing we have

learned to do a better and better census, including statistical adjustment or identification technology to identify where there may

be an undercount. Where the difference here exists is whether that

should trigger then an extra effort to reach out and count, or

whether we should just go ahead and adjust the numbers and not

be able to actually subject those adjusted numbers to the discipline

of an actual head count check, which is the checks and balances

that was just referred to. That is purely a matter of trust and of

accuracy and whether we want to turn this over to a group of people who are going to flip numbers to this block and that block and

suddenly, they are set in stone.

But, any of you care to comment on whether as a country, you

think we are doing a better or worse job than we did in 1800 or

1900? Do you think when we had the Pony Express or before we

had radio and television and advertising, when we had a higher

percentage of immigrant populations, people unable to get out, no

roads and cars, we were doing a better job than we are doing today,

or do you think we are holding up for perfect, when in fact, we are

much better than we have ever been before?

Mr. KEHL. I guess as we have grown, not everybody knows everybody in the community. That was the case maybe 30 years ago. I

hope every 10 years we get better, but please understand our counties or cities are living on nickels and dimes as it relates to the census. These are very important issues to us as far as programming

is concerned, as far as operations are concerned, and our very existence. You are going to see communities dying on the vine unless

there is some degree of accuracy. We always think you get the message out. We like to believe we get the message out. I can tell you

from the local level when we think we do, you can rest assured we

have not. And, that concerns us. If I can find a better way, other

than knocking on doors, if we have to rely on the mass media, fine.

Thank you, sir.

Mr. ROBINSON. Well, history has showed us that Americans have

always had a healthy skepticism; that is why we have checks and

balances in our three branches of government. But I think that

America is much more skeptical now. We have to craft a message

where each individual not only should exercise that personal responsibility but a message that shows how the census-taking process relates to that individual, to make it more personalized. And

once we do that, I believe that will make a difference in terms of

not only our overall quality as defined by accuracy, as well as completeness, but it will make the process a whole lot easier.

Mr. MILLER. Well, let me thank the three of you for being here

today and testifying. We very much appreciate it. I think it has

been a good hearing and I appreciate the citizens of Racine to make

available their facilities today. It is a pleasure to be in southern

Wisconsin.

I ask unanimous consent that all Members’ and witnesses’ written opening statements be included in the record.

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Without objection, so ordered.

In case there are additional questions that Members may have

for our witnesses, I also ask unanimous consent for the record to

remain open for 2 weeks for Members to submit questions for the

record and that the witnesses submit written answers as soon as

practicable.

Without objection, so ordered.

Thank you once again, and we stand adjourned.

[Whereupon, at 12:43 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]

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