U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE

72–446 DTP WASHINGTON : 2001

OVERSIGHT OF THE 2000 CENSUS: STATUS OF

NONRESPONSE FOLLOW-UP AND CLOSEOUT

HEARING

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON THE CENSUS

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON

GOVERNMENT REFORM

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED SIXTH CONGRESS

SECOND SESSION

JUNE 22, 2000

Serial No. 106–225

Printed for the use of the Committee on Government Reform

(

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

http://www.house.gov/reform

For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office

Internet: bookstore.gpo.gov Phone: (202) 512–1800 Fax: (202) 512–2250

Mail: Stop SSOP, Washington, DC 20402–0001

(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-HAGE, 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

LISA SMITH ARAFUNE, 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

JANE COBB, Staff Director

VAUGHN KIRK, Professional Staff Member

AMY ALTHOFF, Professional Staff Member

ANDREW KAVALIUNAS, Clerk

DAVID MCMILLEN, Minority Counsel

(III)

C O N T E N T S

Page

Hearing held on June 22, 2000 ............................................................................... 1

Statement of:

Prewitt, Kenneth, Director, Bureau of the Census ........................................ 21

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

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

of New York:

Information concerning an impact statement ......................................... 12

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 16

Miller, Hon. Dan, a Representative in Congress from the State of Florida:

Pieces of correspondence from Director Prewitt ..................................... 62

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 5

Prewitt, Kenneth, Director, Bureau of the Census:

Letter dated September 19, 2000 ............................................................. 42

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 24

Souder, Hon. Mark E., a Representative in Congress from the State

of Indiana, letter dated June 14, 2000 ........................................................ 55

(1)

OVERSIGHT OF THE 2000 CENSUS: STATUS OF

NONRESPONSE FOLLOW-UP AND CLOSEOUT

THURSDAY, JUNE 22, 2000

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, SUBCOMMITTEE ON THE CENSUS, COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM, Washington, DC.

The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10 a.m., in room

2247, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Dan Miller (chairman

of the subcommittee) presiding.

Present: Representatives Miller, Maloney, Davis of Illinois, and

Ford.

Staff present: Jane Cobb, staff director; Chip Walker, deputy

staff director; Vaughn Kirk and Amy Althoff, professional staff

members; Michael Miguel, senior data analyst; Andrew

Kavaliunas, clerk; Michelle Ash, minority counsel; David McMillen

and Mark Stephenson, minority professional staff members; and

Earley Green, minority assistant clerk.

Mr. MILLER. Good morning. A quorum being present, the subcommittee will come to order.

Last night the subcommittee was notified that the Bureau had

a 3-minute video regarding the census that they would like to air,

and before we get started, I would like to go ahead and play the

videotape for our viewing audience. If you will proceed.

[Videotape played.]

Mr. MILLER. Thank you. It was interesting to see that. It highlights the successful outreach that has taken place around the

country. Now I will proceed with my opening statement.

The operations of the full enumeration census—as mandated by

the Supreme Court—are coming to a close. Nonresponse followup,

the most complex part of the full enumeration, is near the end.

The hard work of the enumerators has not gone unnoticed by

this chairman or this Congress. They are to be commended for

their hard work and civic duty in helping to count America.

Some, unfortunately, have paid the ultimate price. They have

paid with their lives. It’s the sad reality of such a large operation.

Despite our political wrangling that goes on here from time to time,

make no mistake that we regret any tragic loss of life to the Census family. I know I speak for all members of the subcommittee,

and the Congress, when I say that our condolences go out to all of

the friends, family and loved ones of those who have lost their lives

in the civic service of our Nation.

Director Prewitt, you have called the full enumeration the ‘‘Good

Census.’’ I hope it is the good census. In fact, I hope it’s the better

2

census; but I do have some concerns. My concerns are that it may

prove to be the rushed census. On numerous occasions in the past

couple of weeks, concerned Census Bureau employees, some at the

managerial level, have contacted my office. They were all concerned

with one point—quality.

They all expressed a feeling of tremendous pressure to finish

ahead of schedule. There is nothing fundamentally wrong with finishing ahead of schedule as long as quality isn’t being sacrificed.

One local Census office manager, currently employed, said the

pressure was too great from the regional office; that the regions

were in such fierce competition with each other that it was putting

unwarranted pressure on the local Census offices.

In your testimony you spoke of a June 15 internal deadline cutoff

date for nonresponse followup. An internal date of June 15 gives

me concern for the following reasons. In interviews conducted by

the subcommittee in the Los Angeles Region, we found that the regional deadline was June 10. This is almost a month ahead of the

public deadline of July 7 and a week ahead of the internal headquarters’ deadline of June 15. It’s easy to see how this rush to complete the work can spiral out of control as one region attempts to

finish ahead of another. For the benefit of our viewing audience, let

it be known the Census Bureau has divided the Nation into 12 regions.

Director Prewitt, you have assured us that your enumerators

would take the time necessary to get a complete and accurate count

even if it meant staying in the field beyond July 7. It doesn’t seem

to me this is happening.

Unless the undercount has been eliminated, why are people pulling out of the field before July 7? You are ahead of schedule and

under budget, so why leave the field? We would expect to hear complaints of rushed enumeration in the closing days of the nonresponse followup, not weeks before your self-imposed public deadline.

In Florida, at the Hialeah Census Office, they finished a nonresponse workload of 82,000 households in 22 days. That is extraordinarily fast. However, it seemed that no red flags were raised at

the regional level. To the contrary, the workers were rewarded by

being sent to another office that had yet to complete its workload.

Whistle blowers at this other LCO wrote a letter to Congresswoman Carrie Meek which resulted in an investigation by the Inspector General. The IG investigation determined that there were

improper enumerations going on by the Hialeah team. They also

determined that the Hialeah office had all along been getting thirdparty interviews far too quickly and clearly violating Census Bureau procedures. The investigation also determined that the manager of the Hialeah office had instructed his enumerator to take

shortcuts. The situation was so bad that there is consideration that

the entire Hialeah workload may need to be redone. It is also my

understanding that so far, no disciplinary action has been taken

against this manager or his immediate supervisors. I hope I am

wrong.

None of your quality control procedures caught this problem—not

your area manager or the regional technician. How many Hialeahs

3

are there? I can tell you that the IG is concerned about quality and

we are concerned about quality. How many Hialeahs are out there?

According to your records, 46 LCOs completed more than 15 percent of their workload in the 6th week of the nonresponse followup.

Some of them claimed more than 20,000 visits in a single week.

How many of those 46 LCOs cut corners to make the June deadline?

Last week the Commerce Secretary announced a half-hearted attempt to remove politics from the census, a regulation that would

give full, unreviewable authority to the Director of the Census Bureau to decide whether to release the adjusted census numbers.

The announcement would have made more sense coming on April

Fool’s Day than in June. The transferring of decisionmaking authority from the Commerce Secretary to the Census Bureau Director doesn’t make the decision to release manipulated numbers any

more palatable or less political.

Dr. Prewitt you are, after all, a political appointee. Political appointees are appointed to positions because they have beliefs that

are fundamentally the same as the President’s and could be expected to carry out the President’s agenda. As you have said yourself, unlike, for example, the FBI Director, you serve at the pleasure of the President. Are we to believe that this President and the

Commerce Secretary put forth a candidate that didn’t support their

positions on the use of adjusted numbers? Need I remind everyone

that Secretary Daley is leaving the Commerce Department to help

Al Gore’s failing Presidential campaign? This decision was political

from the very beginning.

This proposed regulation isn’t about accuracy and nonpartisanship. It’s about Presidential politics. It’s all about trying to raise

the stakes for Governor Bush. My colleague from New York called

it ‘‘a Kodak moment.’’ what amazed me about that quote was her

candor in acknowledging that the next President would, in fact, be

Governor Bush. These are desperate times for my Democratic colleagues, so it doesn’t surprise me that they would attempt to stack

the deck before Inauguration Day.

This proposed regulation is fundamentally flawed. In fact, I have

here with me a legal opinion from the Congressional Research

Service that states the following, ‘‘although the Secretary may delegate the tasks associated with the decision to the Director, Congress delegated the authority to him and he cannot purport to divest himself of the decisionmaking authority and responsibility.’’

What you’re trying to do is usurp the authority of Congress—to

violate the law, plain and simple. Of course this isn’t the first time

that this administration has attempted to violate the law regarding

the census, and I suspect it won’t be the last.

Is there nothing this administration won’t do to get the illegal

census it wants? And go through all this effort to have your final

plan thrown out of the courts anyway? It really is quite amazing.

Furthermore, I outright reject the notion that the Census Bureau

is capable of carrying out a self-audit. I know that the employees

of the Bureau are sensitive to my comments. But this isn’t a condemnation of their character; rather, a realization of human nature.

4

Look at this from a business model. I am sure many people in

here own stock in a corporation, and when you look to analyze the

financial health or the chances of success of a new business venture for that same corporation, where do you look? You look to an

independent auditor or independent analyst. Well, the American

people are the shareholders and the Census Bureau is your corporation. A self-audit is simply an unacceptable business practice.

Director Prewitt, surrounding yourself with 13 or 30 Bureau professionals doesn’t get us to an independent analysis. Many of these

people have invested the past few years of their lives developing

this plan. I don’t have confidence that they will get to the brink of

fruition of their arduous labor and objectively pull back if that’s

what’s needed. No one should be put in that position. And no objective executive would accept such a self-audit.

Self-audits lead to failure. We need look no further than what is

currently going on at Los Alamos. The Secretary of Energy rejected

an independent security review. He said the Department was capable of correcting the failures; outsiders were not needed.

What transpired was a breach of security of such enormous proportions that we still do not know of all the ramifications. Self-audits lead to failure.

As you have testified, even the National Academy of Sciences and

other statistical groups and universities will not have time to analyze the ACE, or the sampling plan, before it is released to the

States. In your opening statement you talk about this being the

most transparent census ever, and you talk about public scrutiny.

What public scrutiny is there going to be of the adjusted numbers

before they are released? I can tell you, there will be none. No independent review, no specific study, just a group of Census Bureau

insiders advising you. This is not public scrutiny. It’s a whitewash.

Any State that accepts these numbers is playing roulette with their

redistricting programs.

I also firmly believe there is reason to be concerned when the administration divests itself of the ultimate responsibility for the certification of these numbers. While I admire your willingness to take

this decision on yourself, this is a Cabinet-level decision. Someone

at the Cabinet level needs to be responsible for the mess that’s

going to be caused by releasing two sets of numbers. This administration, which is notorious for not taking responsibility for anything that’s bad, must be held accountable in this case to the highest levels. Not only is the plan put forth by the Secretary a violation of Federal law, on its face, it doesn’t stand up to reasonable

scrutiny.

[The prepared statement of Hon. Dan Miller follows:]

5

6

7

8

9

Mrs. MALONEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and welcome again,

Dr. Prewitt.

Mr. Chairman, I don’t understand what will make you happy. I

get the feeling if they were slow and not fulfilling the timetable,

you would call it a, ‘‘failed census request’’ because they were not

meeting the deadline. Now that they are meeting the deadline, you

are calling it a rushed census.

I want to say that the census is about people, it is not about politics. It is about making sure that everyone in America is counted.

I must respond to your political statements in your opening statement. I certainly do not believe that Governor Bush will be President, for a number of reasons which I will not go into, but since

we are at a census hearing, I will go into a census reason, and that

reason which I was referring to is that he will not come forward

and say that he supports adjusting for the undercount, which we

know missed 13 million people in 1990, and if we don’t adjust for

the undercount we will miss even more.

So for a whole host of reasons which I would love to tell you

about, which would take several hours, I can tell you he is not

going to be President, but one of them is that he will not count adequately minorities, blacks, Latinos, Asians, American Indians, and

the poor in the rural areas and the urban areas, which the scientists have told us are undercounted—not the politicians, the scientists—and we have four independent reports that tell us that.

First, I want to thank you, Dr. Prewitt, for the tremendous job

I believe you and your staff have done so far. Everything I have

heard and read indicates that the 2000 Census is well on the way

to being a great operational success. Despite the cautious stance

you have taken, I believe that the 2000 Census may well be the

best, fairest and most accurate census ever, a very fitting way to

start the 21st century. It will be that way not just because of the

operational successes we have seen to date, but ultimately because

it incorporates modern scientific methods into the design.

The census is now in the final weeks of the nonresponse followup

operation. It seems to me to be about 2 weeks ahead of schedule,

but will certainly end on time. This success must be added to many

others, but the two major ones in my opinion—achieving a 65 percent mail-back response rate, and this reversed 3 decades of a

downward trend in response rate. Congratulations to you and the

Department and all of the professionals in the field.

Also, recruiting and hiring all of the personnel you needed to do

the massive job you have done, especially during this time of economic expansion when there is such low unemployment. I must tell

you, I was truly amazed that you were able to hire so many people

on a short time basis for this project.

Mr. Chairman, I am sure that the Director agrees that these successes would have been next to impossible without the full funding

provided by Congress for the Census 2000 and I commend you

again, Mr. Chairman, for your leadership role in achieving this.

Thank you very, very much.

I also want to strongly commend Secretary Daley for last week’s

announcement that he is delegating to the Census Bureau Director

the decision about whether or not to release corrected numbers

next spring. I believe the Secretary has wisely decided to take the

10

politics out of this decision by leaving it up to the professionals at

the Census Bureau, the professionals with the statistical and operational expertise to make what is ultimately a technical, scientific

and operational decision, and to make it in an open and rigorous

way in the full light of day.

I want to note Mr. Ryan’s supportive comments and would hope

that more members would speak out and be supportive of this action, as he has.

I was particularly happy to hear that not only former Director

Richie under President Clinton, and Bryant under President Bush,

supported this action, but also the former Directors under Nixon

and Carter—Census Director Vincent Barabba who in fact had that

authority under President Carter—all have joined in supporting

this decision by Secretary Daley.

I only hope that the rule will go into effect and will be the process by which the Census makes its decisions next year.

Mr. Chairman, I also believe that the Census Bureau should be

more insulated from political pressures than is currently the case.

I believe from your opening statement that you feel the same way.

The census should be about accuracy and the best data possible. It

should be protected as far as possible from nonscientific influences.

To further that end, I am drafting legislation and hope to have

it in before Congress before the end of the week which would require the Census Bureau Director to serve for a defined term, possibly 5 years. He or she would continue to be Presidentially appointed and confirmed by the Senate. In this way, the Director

could be protected from any political influences by Congress or

Presidential elections.

I would welcome the chairman’s input and cosponsorship of this

legislation. It should truly be bipartisan and it would achieve a

goal that you mentioned, removing the Census Department completely from politics with a set term.

Frankly, Director Prewitt, if I could figure out a way to do this,

I would make you Director for life. I think you have done an outstanding job. Thirty percent of your time is responding to requests

from Congress. You are ahead of schedule. You have done a great

job, but I don’t think that your family would approve of that, but

you have done a wonderful job and I thank you.

Although it seems like the decennial is on its way to an unmitigated success, I have real concerns regarding the funding for nondecennial activities contained in the Census Bureau funding in the

House version of the Commerce-Justice-State Appropriations Act.

The bill, as drafted, is $51 million below the administration’s request for the census. These cuts could have a devastating effect on

America’s ability to produce basic economic and demographic information, information critical to Congress as it attempts to address

the issues and policy choices of the 21st century.

Inadequate funding will hinder our Nation’s ability to track our

dynamic economy, measures of business economic activity such as

the gross domestic product, the index of industrial production, the

Consumer Price Index, and the Producer Price Index, measures of

population economic well-being such as employment and unemployment, health insurance coverage, employment of the disabled, and

child care.

11

I would ask unanimous consent that we put into the record a fact

sheet prepared by the Census which outlines these problems and

what would happen with this lack of funding.

[The information referred to follows:]

12

13

14

15

Mrs. MALONEY. I was particularly distressed to hear that funding

to fix the working conditions at Suitland with a building that

seems prone to floods, asbestos, bad water and pigeon problems,

that desperately needs renovation, was not included in the budget

request. As I am sure the chairman will agree, the $5 million request for the American community survey is a truly serious problem if we are going to look for alternatives to the long form that

was so controversial a few weeks ago.

I ask, Mr. Chairman, that you join with me in expressing concern

about this level of funding. I hope that these cuts can be rescinded

before we get to a final bill and will urge my colleagues to do what

they can to that end.

In conclusion, while I get the feeling we are going to hear today,

in excoriating detail, some of the problems that have risen in the

census, as well as we should, no one can dispute that even a few

months ago the idea that we would be almost done with nonresponse followup ahead of schedule is a truly amazing result. And

not only the career staff but the thousands of Americans who

worked in the census and cooperated with the census, who answered their Nation’s call, should be commended.

We have all heard the stories of hard work and dedication of the

staff and even, regrettably, the stories of individual Americans who

have in essence died in the line of duty, without whose efforts we

could not be looking at such a good census.

I would like to close by paying tribute to Ms. Dorothy Stewart,

a 71-year-old census taker who died under tragic circumstances on

June 10. My deepest condolences go to her family and friends, and

I am sure that every Member of Congress joins me in expressing

our sadness. Thank you very much. Director Prewitt, I look forward to your comments.

[The prepared statement of Hon. Carolyn B. Maloney follows:]

16

17

18

19

Mr. MILLER. Mr. Davis.

Mr. DAVIS OF ILLINOIS. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, let

me first of all commend you for holding this hearing to examine the

status of nonresponse followup and closeout procedures. I would

also like to thank Dr. Prewitt for taking his time to come and share

with us today regarding the progress of the 2000 census. It also

provides me an opportunity to commend the Census Bureau’s work

thus far, including the leadership provided by the Secretary of

Commerce who has gone to work directly for the next President of

the United States.

It is good news for America that 98 percent of the nonresponse

followup workload has indeed been completed. As the Census Bureau is entering the final phases of its work, I am interested to

hear how the Bureau is handling the closeout procedures for nonresponse followup and other current operations.

In addition, I am also interested to hear challenges that are facing the Bureau in securing an accurate count of the population. As

we all know, census data are crucial for America. Census data will

be used to determine future funding for schools, hospitals, road

construction and other programs that will affect local communities.

In addition, this data will be used for congressional apportionment

and to determine boundaries for State legislative and congressional

districts.

Thus, accurate census data is crucial for an equal and prosperous

America. I have been close to the process, especially in Chicago,

and I am concerned about Chicago. It is my understanding that we

had been trailing behind the national average of census responses

initially. However, I am pleased to note that with cooperation of

the local census centers, the mayor of Chicago, and elected officials

and community leaders, there has been a tremendous improvement

and great change.

However, even as that improvement has occurred, it has reinforced for me that it is impossible to get an accurate account without some numerical adjustment of the numbers. I have seen instances, Mr. Director, as you know, where every effort has been put

forth in certain kinds of communities and certain kinds of neighborhoods, and yet after all is done, they are still individuals who

either refused to complete the form or individuals who, no matter

how many times you go looking for them, they cannot be found.

These are the individuals who in many instances have the greatest

need of the resources that would be allocated on the basis of the

numbers.

And so this effort has heightened for me the reality that unless

there is adjustment, there can be no absolute fairness. We need to

have a complete count of Chicago and all of America.

There is still much work to be done, so I look forward to hearing

the comments from Dr. Prewitt as we look at especially how we are

making absolutely certain that those individuals who reside in

areas of high poverty, areas with high immigrant populations,

areas with large numbers of people who are homeless, helpless and

hopeless, people who have become cynical and have been left out

but need to be cut in, I will be particularly interested in the efforts

that we are making to make sure that this population group is in

fact counted.

20

Again, I thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you, Dr. Prewitt,

for coming and look forward to your testimony.

Mr. MILLER. Mr. Ford.

Mr. FORD. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and certainly to Mrs.

Maloney and my colleague Mr. Davis and others. Welcome again,

Director, and I apologize I was not here for your last visit.

I am pleased to announce that we in Tennessee have been working hard across the State. Our regional office, Ms. Hardy and others, have cooperated with others across the State. I have worked

with Democrats and Republicans. My colleague, Jimmy Duncan

from the Knoxville area—he, I, and Mayor Victor Ash, both Republicans, worked closely together, along with members of their city

council and school board and county commissioners.

I was in Nashville with my colleague, Bob Clement, the mayor

of that great city, Bill Purcell, and we have done things in my district in Memphis. We believe we are making progress and hope

that our numbers will maintain or continue to be above the national average.

We applaud the good work that you are doing. I mention that because the bipartisanship that pervades back in Tennessee, I would

hope that it would pass off a little bit in Washington, and I would

hope at some point that this committee would offer an apology to

you, sir, for attacking your integrity and suggesting that perhaps

there was—not casting aspersions, but suggesting that you had

something to do with something that happened out in your San

Diego office, which all of us have castigated and suggested that we

disagree with, and would hope and have been assured that that

matter has been taken care of.

I look forward to hearing your comments this morning. I recognize that is the most look-intensive effort of the census count. I am

pleased to hear that we are ahead of schedule and I am interested

to hear what we can do on both sides of the aisle to assist you.

Thank you for cooperating with this committee so much and coming before this committee at any and all times that you have been

asked. Again, I look forward to hearing your testimony today and

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. MILLER. I don’t think anybody was questioning the integrity

of the Director of the Census Bureau with respect to the California

problem. There was a problem in California, but certainly the Director, I don’t think it was ever suggested, was directly involved or

involved with the issue. But there is a genuine concern in the General Accounting Office which is investigating it.

Mr. FORD. I do know that passions were high that day and one

could have construed from the news report and accounts that perhaps the Director—I read the Director’s comments, and I wanted

him to be assured that those of us on this side, and I think I speak

for those on the other side as well, certainly did not mean for that

to come across or for anyone to interpret it that way. Thank you,

Mr. Chairman, for your comments.

Mr. MILLER. Director Prewitt, I think, will acknowledge that it

was not a question of his integrity.

I believe you want Mr. Thompson and Mr. Raines to be sworn

in also if needed.

[Witnesses sworn.]

21

Mr. MILLER. Let the record acknowledge that they have answered in the affirmative. Director Prewitt, you have an opening

statement.

STATEMENT OF KENNETH PREWITT, DIRECTOR, BUREAU OF

THE CENSUS

Mr. PREWITT. Yes, Mr. Chairman. I would like to preface with a

comment about Congresswoman Maloney’s suggestion that perhaps

I could be appointed for life. My wife would agree to that if that

would be a bipartisan resolution. So if you can get the chairman

to agree to that, we will proceed.

I do also want to thank you for showing the video because it does

help explain why I believe, at least at this stage, we have been

emboldened to label this a ‘‘good census.’’ A good census is not a

perfect census. A good census does not mean that there are not

loose ends, but nevertheless across the large system that has been

the decennial census, we do feel quite confident about what has

been accomplished.

Hiring was a challenge. We hired and retained sufficient staff to

complete every field operation thus far. Paying staff on time was

a challenge. We have had a total of 920,000 different individuals

move through the census process in the last several months, and

we have no major complaints about payroll, and that is a very complicated set of operations to make happen. Again we are using temporary employees to run a very complicated system for other temporary employees; 920,000 people moved through our system in the

last several months, and we are pleased that we had no major payroll or administrative problems.

Obviously, completing every field operation on schedule was a

challenge, but we have completed on or near schedule every one of

our field operations. There was a risk of an unexpectedly low mail

response rate, and we exceeded expectations.

There were concerns about how well the Census Bureau data

capture systems would work. Again we exceeded expectations.

There was a question about whether the Census Bureau’s programs to provide questionnaire assistance and multiple response

options would work, and they did.

As we entered the nonresponse followup operation 2 months ago,

the Bureau faced its most serious operational challenges. Would we

have enough staff and would they be highly productive? Would the

public cooperate? The great success that the Census Bureau has

had in its nonresponse followup operation is due to the dedication,

enthusiasm and resourcefulness of the census workers and to the

fact that the vast majority of Americans did step up and do their

duty.

Mr. MILLER. I think we have a vote on the rule. We can complete

your statement and then recess for a single vote.

Mr. PREWITT. While we are pleased with progress thus far, there

remain several operations that will improve what is already a good

census. I have said numerous times that any national statistic, including the census count, is an estimate of the truth. The challenge

is to get that estimate as close to the truth as possible; that is,

there is a true count of the resident population of the United States

on April 1, 2000. Were we to conclude the census with the compleVerDate 11-MAY-2000 10:35 Jun 07, 2001 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00025 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\72446.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
22

tion of nonresponse followup, we would provide an estimate of that

true count. It is unlikely that that estimate would be absolutely accurate; that is, identical with the true count. We believe that we

can move that estimate closer to the truth. We will continue with

three other major operations.

The coverage edit followup does so by reconciling population

count discrepancies. The coverage improvement followup operation

enumerates housing units added to the address list too late to have

been included in the initial nonresponse followup operation. We expect to be returning to nearly 10 percent of the housing units

across the country. And the accuracy and coverage evaluation uses

a dual system estimation in a procedure that measures the number

of persons missed and the number erroneously included in any of

the prior census operations.

Although we are now moving into other field operations in our

local census offices that have completed nonresponse followup, we

are committed to fully applying our procedures to account for every

remaining address in the local census offices. Daily production levels begin to decrease toward the end of the nonresponse followup.

Some enumerators complete their easiest cases first, finish the

work closer to their homes first, or believe that the quicker they

finish their assignment, the sooner they will be out of work. In

order to bring the operation to closure within the scheduled 10

weeks, we look at areas within each local office that are lagging

and we implement the final attempt procedure. When 95 percent

of the workload is completed, final attempt begins and the crew

leader consolidates the remaining work and gives it to the most

productive and dependable enumerators.

In your letter of invitation you asked about serious problems.

With one exception, an LCO in Florida, there are no serious problems we are aware of across our system. There obviously are a

handful of cases where there are procedural deviations in nonresponse followup. We are reinterviewing in those instances. This

happens when LCO management does not follow final attempt procedures as set forth. Our best estimate at this stage is not less

than 50,000 nor more than 100,000 cases will require reinterviewing. That is one-fourth of 1 percent of the nonresponse followup

workload, well within any reasonable tolerance levels of a complicated series of operations.

The only serious case is Hialeah, FL, along with two other areas

that used enumerators from Hialeah. We are reinterviewing 20

percent of the nonresponse followup workload that was done by

enumerators who, on instruction from the LCO manager, prematurely collected partial data on households.

You asked how many Hialeahs there are out there, and obviously

we are looking at that and we can talk about that. I should say

that the Hialeah case was directly connected to the Elian Gonzalez

issue, and there are not a lot of Elian Gonzalezes out there, but

we were in a community that was in a state of uproar when we

went into the field. We caught it, and have corrected it and can

talk in detail about it if you wish. Of course, we are also reevaluating the rest of the work done in Hialeah. We think that we have

found all 100 percent of the cases that were treated in that abbreviated fashion.

23

I return to the earlier discussion about what is a good census.

The third element of a good census involves openness, transparency

and public scrutiny, which in turn can lead to public trust in the

process. We believe this has been the most open and transparent

census in history. Every detail has been and is being scrutinized,

and we welcome that scrutiny.

Indeed, as you know, last week I provided at a press conference

and we did make public a document entitled ‘‘Accuracy and Coverage Evaluation’’ that does set forth the rationale of the Census

Bureau for a preliminary determination that corrected data can be

produced in the timeframe and improve the census. At that same

press conference, Commerce Department General Counsel Andrew

Pincus described the proposed regulation to delegate authority.

Just in conclusion, Mr. Chairman, you made reference to the fact

that I was a political appointee. That is true. The Director of the

Census Bureau is a Presidential appointee. So, Mr. Chairman, is

the head of the National Science Foundation and the NASA. I don’t

believe, and I doubt that you do, that there is, therefore, a Republican versus a Democratic way that NSF funds nanotechnology or

particle physics, or NIH conducts its scientific war on cancer or

AIDS, or NASA designs the exploration of Mars. I don’t think that

because someone is a Presidential appointee that makes their activities, therefore, partisan. And at the Census Bureau we do not

think that there is a way to conduct a Republican versus a Democratic census. We think that there are simply ways to get the estimate closer to the truth, and that is what we believe we are about.

Thank you.

Mr. MILLER. Thank you, Director Prewitt.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Prewitt follows:]

24

25

26

27

28

29

30

31

Mr. MILLER. We will take a quick recess and go vote and come

right back.

[Recess.]

Mr. MILLER. We will proceed. Before I get started asking questions, let me respond to a couple of things.

Director Prewitt, you mentioned you are a political appointee,

and there is nothing wrong with that. The head of the National Institutes of Health is a political appointee, and Mrs. Maloney and

I are politicians.

The concern I have on the proposal which we will talk about

more, is the need for independent outside review, and there is none

that is going to be made or participating in this prior to the decision in February or March of next year. If you go to NIH, they have

peer reviews and they don’t do it all internal. This is strictly an

internal decision process.

Let me also respond to Congressman Davis and Congresswoman

Maloney, the need to count the undercounted. We all agree that we

want to do the very best job that we can, but we are a Nation of

laws, and ultimately we know that this is going to be decided by

the Supreme Court whether we use adjusted numbers. The sooner

we get that decision out of the way, the better off everybody concerned is.

I feel that the Supreme Court is going to say you cannot use adjusted numbers for redistricting purposes. The court is ultimately

going to do that. To place your blind faith in adjusted numbers is

unfortunate, because we have to do everything that we can to get

the best count possible this first full enumeration. That is what I

believe that the courts are going to say that we have to use for redistricting. That is the reason that I believe we put all of the extra

resources into this.

Let’s count the undercounted African Americans and the rural

poor, let’s put those resources into that area because, as I say, and

I have said a million times, ultimately the Supreme Court is going

to decide it, and I feel fairly confident that the court is going to

rule for redistricting and apportioning you are going to have to use

the same sets of numbers, you can’t have two sets of numbers.

Who came up with the proposed regulation and did it originate

at the Bureau, the Department of Commerce or elsewhere?

Mr. PREWITT. I honestly don’t know. It was first mentioned to

me, the possibility of it, in a meeting that included myself and

Andy Pincus, and Bill Barron I think was there. I presume it must

have first come from the Commerce Department. As you recall in

my last hearing, Mr. Chairman, I did rather strongly urge in principle that the authority over census operations be left at the Census Bureau.

Just to continue with that, you talk about the level at which this

decision should be made. The Census Bureau constantly releases

data. We are going to release the apportionment numbers without

outside review. We have to self-audit the numbers. There is no

other place in the country where we can say, are these apportionment numbers the right numbers? It is our job. We do the best we

can. I don’t understand the point about the self-audit. What else

could an agency do except do its work and report it in an open and

transparent fashion?

32

Mr. MILLER. When you have a new approach that Justice sets

the numbers, you seek outside advice. You sought the National

Academy of Sciences’ advice and you had a 2-day meeting in February. There are distinguished statisticians that are highly respected people that disagree with this method of adjustment. There

is no outside group looking at this, only after the fact, will there

be. It is all strictly internal at this stage, and in my opinion a biased decision has already been made. That is, it hasn’t been allowed for public scrutiny. The transparency that we talk about does

not exist because no outside group will have the data to evaluate

it until after the fact, correct?

Mr. PREWITT. Is it your recommendation, then, that we don’t release the apportionment counts until some outside agency reviews

them?

Mr. MILLER. The Secretary of Commerce has to release that data.

Do you go to an adjusted set of data which the courts have ruled

is illegal for apportionment purposes? When they tried it in 1990

it was a failure. If Barbara Bryant had released them in February

1991, it would have been an embarrassment to this country. We

would have automatically taken a congressional seat away from

Pennsylvania and given it to another State. It took 2 years to figure out the problems of 1990.

It seems that any nonlawyer can read the proposal, and we will

give you a copy of the CRS—and that is Congressional Research

Service, which is a division of the Library of Congress. It is not a

biased agency or a partisan organization. It is one that Members

of Congress can ask for an unbiased opinion. But any nonlawyer

can read this proposal and realize that a Cabinet member giving

away his authority that is vested in him by Federal law is illegal.

Who is the lawyer that drafted this? And if you don’t know, perhaps John Thompson can let me know who made this decision, because I feel it is illegal.

Mr. PREWITT. You are addressing questions to me that should be

addressed to the Department of Commerce.

Mr. MILLER. Who is the lawyer?

Mr. PREWITT. I would presume that it is the Department of Commerce lawyer. We did not produce this document. I would urge you

to talk to Andy Pincus. He is the counsel to the Department of

Commerce.

Mr. MILLER. The clearest example of how ridiculous this proposal

is, is that the legal authority cited as the basis for this proposal

refers to the Secretary’s ability to delegate certain decisions. I am

sure that he delegates decisions all of the time, but he is ultimately

responsible for the decisions of all of those under him. Delegating

authority is one thing. Divesting authority is another. It is difficult

to believe a serious lawyer came up with this. This proposal is simply illegal on its face. This move is also blatantly political. Secretary Daley announced this proposal and 24 hours later he leaves

to run the Gore campaign. It is clearly an attempt to try and subvert the will of the majority of Congress and put presumptive

President Bush in a box.

I hope the Bureau and the Commerce Department will come to

their senses and withdraw this ridiculous proposal; otherwise it is

sure to be defeated in the courts.

33

In your written testimony you state that the third element of a

good census involves openness, transparency and public scrutiny,

which can lead to public trust in the process. You talk about the

importance of public scrutiny, but everything about this proposed

regulation, particularly the notion of an internal review panel, goes

against the notion of public scrutiny. If you are serious about public scrutiny, why don’t you allow for an independent scientific analysis of the process before your decision to release adjusted numbers

to the States for redistricting?

Mr. PREWITT. Mr. Chairman, we have statutory deadlines to

meet and we will meet those with respect to the redistricting; and

with respect to the apportionment number we will meet that deadline. The apportionment number is an adjusted number. There is

a current apportionment number based upon nonresponse followup.

We are now going to do a new operation called ‘‘CIFU.’’ We will

keep adjusting that number until we get to the day that——

Mr. MILLER. You are counting real people, not virtual people.

Mr. PREWITT. We don’t count virtual people. We count real people.

Mr. MILLER. That is what you do when you adjust.

Mr. PREWITT. That is your language not ours.

Mr. MILLER. Statistical sampling, that is creating virtual people.

Mr. PREWITT. The apportionment number includes imputed census records, right?

Mr. MILLER. I beg your pardon?

Mr. PREWITT. The apportionment numbers includes imputed census records; that is, people that we have not talked to but we impute into the census records.

Mr. MILLER. But they are identifying an individual, a specific individual. When you do statistical adjustment, you are talking about

a virtual person. To me there is a significant difference. You see,

when you get a form in the mail and you fill out that form, those

are real people. If you have to knock on the door and you talk to

that person or using proxy data, you talk to a neighbor, yes, John

Jones lived there on April 1, you are going to create a virtual person in sampling adjustment. You don’t have a name to that person

or identification. You are statistically going to create a person or

eliminate a person. You are going to do both. That is the way that

statistical adjustment works.

Mr. PREWITT. In the apportionment number, there will be a certain number of census records which are put there through an imputation process. Those are not people with names. They are not

people who filled out a form. They are people who our statistical

processes lead us to believe by putting that census record in there,

we have given the country a more accurate number. That is an adjusted number. It is not the basic count we had after nonresponse

followup, because we do lots of work between now and then. That,

we believe, gets that estimate of the count closer to the truth.

Mr. MILLER. It is like a homeless person that you don’t have a

name for but you see a physical body.

Mr. PREWITT. I am talking about an imputed census file, not a

homeless person without a name. It is certainly a process of trying

to get the estimate of the count closer to the truth. We will do that.

34

That is not done with any external scientific agency. That is done

by the Census Bureau because that is our job.

Mr. MILLER. It is different from statistical adjustment where you

use the virtual people.

Mrs. Maloney.

Mrs. MALONEY. Mr. Chairman, I have only just seen the legal

memo that you received from CRS, but even from a very brief reading, the CRS report that I read supports the proposed rule. On

page 2 it says, ‘‘Congress explicitly delegated to the Secretary of

Commerce the authority and responsibility for a decision concerning the use of sampling and the reporting of tabulations for redistricting to the States. The Secretary may delegate such authority

to the Director of the Census Bureau.’’

The memo goes on to suggest some changes to the language of

the proposed rule, and that of course is why we have a comment

period, and I am sure that the Secretary of Commerce would welcome your comments and consider your opinions. I would like to

put that on the record.

Director Prewitt, only because the chairman raised the issue, I

would just like to ask you, what would happen if—which I don’t believe is going to happen—G.W. Bush is elected President, and he

then overturns the rule, since he has not come out in support of

correcting for the undercount. What would the Census Bureau do

if that scenario happened?

Mr. PREWITT. I believe the Census Bureau would release the

numbers that we were instructed to release, if so instructed. My

guess is—that is why this conversation about whether it is political

or not political is hard to follow. We presume that this decision—

at least the chairman presumes that this decision is going to be

made by a Republican-appointed Secretary of Commerce and a Republican-appointed Census Bureau Director. It is going to take effect post change in administration.

All the Census Bureau will do in February and March, as it

pours through its data based on everything that it has accumulated

about the census, is say what are the best set of numbers for Federal funding and redistricting and other statistical purposes.

They will say to the Census Bureau Director, as I understand

this delegation, ‘‘Mr. Director, Mrs. Director, we believe these are

the best set of numbers that we can produce from the decennial

census process.’’ The Director may say ‘‘fine, I take your advice,

that is what I am going to do;’’ or he or she can say ‘‘no, I don’t

take your advice, make a different decision.’’ If he or she is then

overruled by his or her boss, I don’t know what the status will be,

but the Census Bureau itself simply does what it can do to produce

the best set of numbers that it can produce in the timeframe available to it to meet its statutory deadlines and say these are the

numbers.

Mrs. MALONEY. Only because the chairman has raised it, I would

like to go into what is a political appointee. A political appointee

is a Presidential appointee. How many people work at the Census

Bureau?

Mr. PREWITT. Well, as I say, right now it goes to half a million,

but the permanent staff is more like 6,000 or 7,000.

35

Mrs. MALONEY. How many of those people out of those 6,000 or

7,000 are Presidential appointees?

Mr. PREWITT. There is one. And three are Schedule C appointees.

I might say of those three, one does intergovernmental relations,

one does public information, and one does legislative relationships.

None of them have anything to do with any technical decisions

made at the Census Bureau. I am the only person that connects to

the technical end of the Census Bureau who is a political appointee.

Mrs. MALONEY. So everyone else is a career civil servant?

Mr. PREWITT. Yes, as a matter of fact.

Mrs. MALONEY. So it doesn’t matter who is President, they will

be working there because they are career professionals?

Mr. PREWITT. Well, the six people who are the senior people right

behind me, for the most part manage the decennial have collectively been associated with the Census Bureau for many years.

Their accumulated years at the Census Bureau total about 150

years. If you add the 12 regional directors, they have about 340

years of experience. So the people actually managing the decennial

census collectively have nearly 500 years of census experience.

Mrs. MALONEY. And they are professionals?

Mr. PREWITT. Yes. Mr. Thompson, who has major authority, has

been here for 25 years. He reports to someone else who has been

here 32 years, who reports to somebody else who has been in the

national statistical system, not the Census Bureau, for nearly 30

years.

Mrs. MALONEY. How were you appointed? Are you a friend of

President Clinton’s?

Mr. PREWITT. No, I did not know him.

Mrs. MALONEY. Did you work on his campaign?

Mr. PREWITT. No.

Mrs. MALONEY. Had you ever met him before you were appointed?

Mr. PREWITT. No, ma’am.

Mrs. MALONEY. Are you even a member of a political club?

Mr. PREWITT. No. I have never been a member of a political club.

It is embarrassing to say these things. I have not been very active

in politics. I have been an academic, and that is where I have spent

my time.

Mrs. MALONEY. I consider politics and public service a very honorable career, especially when it is done wisely, honestly, and to

help people. But your description doesn’t sound like a politician,

not even being a member—do you vote?

Mr. PREWITT. I try to vote. I am a good citizen; I will put it that

way.

Mrs. MALONEY. How were you appointed if you don’t know the

President? How did you get your job, this, ‘‘political job’’?

Mr. PREWITT. I was called by someone in the Department of

Commerce and asked if I could recommend any names, and these

were the criteria that they gave to me. They said, we want a short

list of names for the directorship who are reputable academics, scientists, who are not political. That actually was the criteria.

Mrs. MALONEY. So they were looking for scientists and academics?

36

Mr. PREWITT. And I gave five names in the scientific community

that I felt would be a first rate Director. They said, can we put

your name on this list? I said no, I have never worked for the government and don’t intend to work for the government. They said,

would you think about it and call us back? I mentioned it to my

wife and she thought I should do it. She said, it will keep me

younger.

Mrs. MALONEY. It has given you more gray hair.

Who called you from the Census Department; and, second, what

was your job when they called you? What were you doing?

Mr. PREWITT. Robert Shapiro made that call. He is and was

Under Secretary. I was president of the Social Science Research

Council based in New York City.

Mrs. MALONEY. So you were heading a scientific organization?

Mr. PREWITT. Yes.

Mrs. MALONEY. Had you ever met Secretary Daley?

Mr. PREWITT. No.

Mrs. MALONEY. Were you ever interviewed by Secretary Daley?

Mr. PREWITT. At one point in the process, after I met Mr. Shapiro and Mr. Mallet, I spent 20 minutes with Secretary Daley, approximately.

Mrs. MALONEY. Have you ever met with the President since you

have been appointed?

Mr. PREWITT. I wouldn’t call it a meeting, Congresswoman.

Someone at the White House thought I should have a photo op, and

we met in the hall for what I would say was 10 seconds. The President is—he is a busy man. I do not know for certain that he knew

that he was talking to the Director of the Census Bureau.

Mrs. MALONEY. So you had a 10-seconds photo op, or a 10-minute

photo op?

Mr. PREWITT. I think it was 10 seconds.

Mrs. MALONEY. So he is not visiting the Census Bureau or interacting in any way or whatever?

Mr. PREWITT. No.

Mrs. MALONEY. It sounds to me that you are a professional academic scientist who has been appointed to a position of tremendous

importance in our government.

My time has expired, and I thank the Chairman.

Mr. MILLER. Mr. Davis.

Mr. DAVIS OF ILLINOIS. Thank you very much. Dr. Prewitt, I do

believe that academicians can join political clubs. I think it is quite

appropriate.

Mr. FORD. He is from Chicago, I might add.

Mr. DAVIS OF ILLINOIS. In Chicago everybody is political. You

cannot live in Chicago and not be political.

Let me ask you, Dr. Prewitt, since much has been made about

the whole business of the delegation of authority—and this question is probably outside your realm—but if there was no Secretary

of Commerce, who then would make the decisions about the operation of the Department?

Mr. PREWITT. I think it would only be the Census Bureau Director.

Mr. DAVIS OF ILLINOIS. I guess my point is, the Secretary really

didn’t have to make his determination before leaving, and yet a deVerDate 11-MAY-2000 10:35 Jun 07, 2001 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00040 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\72446.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
37

cision would have gotten made at some point anyway? That is kind

of the way that I see that. And so it is difficult for me to suggest

that that would have just simply been a political decision being

made by the Secretary other than to provide as much assurance as

one could provide that the technical decisions are in fact going to

be made by technicians rather than politicians. But at any rate,

you made a statement at one point relative to statistical corrected

data, and suggested that that would be more accurate. What is statistical corrected data?

Mr. PREWITT. In a census, Mr. Davis, what we actually believe

is that you can’t know the truth. You can only get an estimate of

the truth. So what a census is is nothing more complicated than

a series of operations that constantly try to get that estimate closer

to what the truth is. That is why I say we currently have an estimate. We have 33,000 more households to reach in nonresponse followup, 319 in Memphis, by the way. But we are basically finished.

We could produce a number now. We think we can improve that

number by doing these next big operations. As I say, we are going

back out in the field to some 8 or 10 million households. We will

keep trying to improve that number to get it closer to what we

think the truth is.

One of those operations, only one out of a dozen or—well, counting three other small ones—is the accuracy and coverage evaluation. In that operation we do something which has been described

as capture/recapture in wildlife studies. You take the census record

and you go out and reexamine that household and then you match

the records together. What that is, is in those households that have

a set of demographic characteristics, inner-city, African Americans

who rent their homes and who come from low response rate areas,

we have a sample of those kinds of people in the country and we

find out how many of them we missed. If our calculation is we

missed 4 percent of them, then where they live across the country,

we will add 4 percent to the census records, not virtual people, census records. This is a statistical operation. It’s not a kind of identification-of-people operation. That is all the correction is.

It also turns out that we overcount. People send in more than

one form and we identify that and we think that it is extremely

important that when we do the corrected file, that those counts are

appropriately reduced because we should not double-count the social groups in this country.

Mr. DAVIS OF ILLINOIS. Do you believe as I do that if we were

to take our best enumerators, the best people that we have got, and

have them count until the end of the year, that there still would

be some people that we would have missed?

Mr. PREWITT. Regrettably, I have to agree with that. We have

had enumerators met with guns and physically abused. We have

had respondents who have sent us in $100, saying I understand

that is the fine, and I will pay the fine and never answer this questionnaire. We have people here illegally who do not want to be

counted.

If you read the marvelous series in the New York Times about

the race relations in the United States, you get some idea of the

complexity of the population out there. There are some population

groups who we can’t find or will not cooperate with the census. So

38

we are not—there is no process that could reach all 275 million,

give or take, whatever the quality of our enumerators are.

Mr. DAVIS OF ILLINOIS. Even though those individuals will not

cooperate, do you feel that it would be unfair to them to not have

them included in the ultimate count?

Mr. PREWITT. Yes, sir; and wrong for the country. If we know

that we are undercounting and overcounting—and we know that

because we have been working on this for 50 years—then to

produce a census that doesn’t recognize that strikes us as failing

our responsibilities to the country.

Mr. DAVIS OF ILLINOIS. Again, let me just commend you and the

Bureau for I think the outstanding work that you’ve done in even

the corrected action that has been taken in some instances that

may have started rather sluggish, but it is not always a matter of

how you start, it is far more important how you finish. I think that

we are going to finish well. Thank you very much.

Mr. MILLER. Let me initially make a comment in response to

Mrs. Maloney. The statement that Secretary Daley released says

the determination of the Director of the Census shall not be subject

to review, reconsideration, or reversal by the Secretary of Commerce.

The law doesn’t give him permission to do that. I know that we

are not lawyers here, I don’t know if Mrs. Maloney is, but that is

what the real question is. The ultimate responsibility has to be

there. You need to put the responsibility right at the level where

it belongs.

There is nothing wrong with being a political appointee. You

have a distinguished record, just as Dr. Varmus, who headed NIH

for so many years. It is never a question of whether you are political, but as political, you end up in—basically the President or whoever has that power, the Secretary of Commerce or his assistant,

is going to select people for the job that is going to go along with

their beliefs and positions. The concern is that there is nothing

wrong, that is the way that the system works.

I don’t think that you were contacted because you are a loyal Republican. I don’t think that you give financial contributions to the

Republican Party. Do you give political contributions, or have you?

Mr. PREWITT. Yes, I have.

Mr. MILLER. To the Republicans?

Mr. PREWITT. To the best candidate that I can find.

Mr. MILLER. Any Republicans?

Mr. PREWITT. Just to make sure that the record is correct, I have

certainly not given any political contributions since I have had this

job.

Mr. MILLER. But previously you have made contributions to the

Democratic Party, and there is nothing wrong with that.

Mr. PREWITT. That’s correct.

Mr. MILLER. You stated last week in a press conference that

there is no bonus system for census employees, and you wanted to

dispel the rumor that there was one. Is there no bonus system for

census employees?

Mr. PREWITT. There is no bonus system connected to the—the

reference that I was making was a bonus system for enumerators

or crew leaders who completed their decennial work on time.

39

The Census Bureau has incentive and award programs across its

system, and has had that for years and years. But the particular

reference in the press that I saw had to do with a bonus system

for completing work in, I think the Los Angeles region. We are not

allowed by law, for example, to give any kind of program or payment to any temporary employees.

Mr. MILLER. You have seen this recommendation for recognition,

and you have a Special Achievement Award, Special Act of Service

Award, Cash in a Flash Award, On the Spot Award, Time Off

Award. I think bonuses is what makes this system—we need to

have incentives. I am not opposed to them, but the bottom line is

that there are bonuses. You may want to call it another name, but

they are bonuses for getting the job done right. Isn’t that right?

Mr. PREWITT. We call them incentive programs.

Mr. MILLER. That is a bonus?

Mr. PREWITT. Surely.

Mr. MILLER. We are getting into this Bill Clinton issue, what is

the definition of the word ‘‘is.’’ We are rewarding people, and again there is nothing wrong with

that, but the concern we have is to make sure that we are making

the proper balance between timeliness and quality. We don’t want

to lose any quality.

Let me go to the question of proxy data. Enumerators attempt

six contacts and if they can’t speak to someone in a household, they

go to third-party source such as a neighbor or postal carrier. This

is proxy.

During the 1998 dress rehearsals, the Census Bureau found very

high amounts of proxy in the nonresponse universe: 20 percent in

Sacramento, 16.4 percent in South Carolina; 16.5 percent in

Menomonie. The Census Bureau concluded the high amount of

proxies was a result of census workers not following procedures in

the field. This directly affects the quality of the data. How can you

or I be confident that the Census Bureau remedied the problem

when you are not measuring proxy data at the local census office

level?

Mr. PREWITT. We certainly will use proxy data in the decennial

census.

Mr. MILLER. The question is the level of it. In the dress rehearsal, it was overused in some areas.

Mr. PREWITT. Proxy data are better than no data. They simply

are. We do everything that we can to get a population count from

every housing unit in the country. If we get that from a knowledgeable neighbor or building manager, we believe that is far superior

to leaving that census file out of the census record. So we are not

defensive about proxy data at all. We would prefer to get the response from the respondent. We would prefer that everyone mail

their form back in. They don’t. We would prefer when we knocked

on the door, they answered the door and said ‘‘certainly.’’

Mr. MILLER. Proxy data is necessary and it is better than no

data. The question is when you get to obtain it. Now that we have

the time that we are ahead of schedule, we should be able to keep

going back to count the people that Mr. Davis and others say we

want counted. I am saying do everything that we can to get them

counted because they are real people, because the idea of adjustVerDate 11-MAY-2000 10:35 Jun 07, 2001 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00043 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\72446.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
40

ment, it is going to be thrown out probably and so let’s not cut corners now.

Mr. PREWITT. Yes, sir. We have no trouble with that recommendation and we are not cutting corners, of course.

Mr. MILLER. But you are not measuring proxy data at the local

census office—or what level or percentage are you?

Mr. PREWITT. Every questionnaire that we produce has a set of

tags on it. We will report that measure to the country when we

have all of the data.

Mr. MILLER. Wouldn’t it be important to measure the success of

the local census office?

Mr. PREWITT. We use a number of other indicators that we think

are better.

Mr. MILLER. Mr. Ford is back. We will go to Mr. Ford.

Mr. FORD. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I was just trying to figure

out where you were going with the line of questioning. Perhaps, the

bonus piece, what point were you trying to make with that?

Mr. MILLER. My concern is that we are rushing out of the field

too quickly and not getting the best-quality data. I think bonuses

are fine. The question is quality. I say stay in the field and make

sure that we get everybody counted in the hardest-to-count districts rather than jumping to proxy data. That is all I am saying.

We have to make sure that we are not overusing proxy data.

Mr. FORD. My second question would be with regard to the politics of all of this. The concern with this authority being vested with

the—with Director Prewitt—what is the concern? It is a concern,

say, for instance, hypothetically, Mr. Bush is the next President

and is there some concern that his Commerce Secretary won’t have

the authority to make this decision. That is what I am confused

with. We have reached a very, very low point here if we can’t take

people at their word. The Director has made clear that his purpose

as Director is not to advance some Democratic agenda but to try

to get an accurate count. I am just curious what we are concerned

about. Maybe I am missing it.

Mr. MILLER. There are two comments. First of all you can delegate authority, but to divest authority is illegal. Going beyond that,

the question is not using independent outside advice. At Los Alamos we did—— Mr. FORD. This is not Los Alamos, and that is an explosive term

right now. I agree with Senator Byrd and others who have criticized my friend Bill Richardson.

Mr. MILLER. If they want to bring in outside experts, the National Academy of Sciences, which is a respected institute, to look

at the data and give advice, that is not allowed under this regulation. This regulation says only the people within the Bureau inside

can make the decision. I think you should have outside experts give

some advice. That is not provided in this regulation until after the

fact it is allowed. That is my concern, is that the decision process

is trying to be set in concrete now. I am not sure that this is the

right decision process.

Mr. FORD. So it is more that you want to ensure that we get as

many voices——

Mr. MILLER. They are setting a rule that only the people that design the plan will decide the answer. In corporations, you bring in

41

consultants or auditors. The National Institutes of Health uses

peer review. They don’t just have inside people making the decision. The proposed regulation is all inside people only, and nobody

outside.

Mr. FORD. Is it a regulation that we can address and perhaps

amend?

Mr. MILLER. Well, it is a regulation that they are going to impose

at the Commerce Department. We will have a chance for comment.

They are going over Congress’s head.

Mr. FORD. I would rather get to the issue as opposed to talking

about definitions of ‘‘is.’’ This is not Los Alamos and this is not an

impeachment inquiry here. What is your attitude toward the

thoughts and the concerns that the Chairman has expressed? I do

know that the National Academy of Sciences suggested that sampling would not be a good idea.

Mrs. MALONEY. They supported it.

Mr. PREWITT. Yes.

Mr. MILLER. They support the concept, but they have not reviewed the plan. They will review it after the fact.

Mr. FORD. I only raise that point to say that I understand that

it may support your point at one time, and I wonder if they would

come back and support something that the administration—since

we all believe that politics plays such an excessive role in all of

this. Notwithstanding that, what do you think about the thoughts

that the chairman has said?

Mr. PREWITT. First, the census design has been subjected to a

great deal of outside advice, scrutiny, and consultation with the

statistical community for about 8 years. Four different committees

of the National Academy of Science have been reviewing our work.

This is not something that is being done by some group of insiders.

This is being done with enormous consultation across the country.

There are some very good statisticians, largely at the University

of California, Berkeley, who have different views. They incidentally, Mr. Miller, do believe in adjusting but they would use a raking method which is a different method from dual-system estimation. We believe that a raking method is less powerful and statistically robust than dual-system estimation; but they also understand that there is an undercount, and the way to fix it is to use

a different adjustment method.

So we are arguing about two different kinds of adjustment methods.

[The information referred to follows:]

42

43

44

Mr. PREWITT. Specifically, Mr. Ford, to your comment, in 1980

the Director of the Census was Vince Barabba. He served under

President Nixon and left when President Carter came in. The decennial census was not in good shape in 1980. He was a Republican, brought back by a Democratic administration, to run the decennial census. He made the decision with internal advice about

whether to release the numbers or not. He decided against it because they were not robust enough.

When I was considering taking this job, I talked to Mr. Barabba,

and I said, ‘‘What advice do you give me?’’ He said the most important advice is get every possible decision out of the Commerce Department and back to the Census Bureau where it belongs, and

that is a Republican Census Director giving me advice.

I then talked to Barbara Bryant and said, ‘‘What advice do you

have for me?’’ She said, get every decision that you can get back

to the Census Bureau; these decisions are better made at the Census Bureau. The statistical community will very substantially support this decision because they believe the kind of people who

should be making this decision are statisticians and technicians.

That is what they believe. If you want to draw a sample of the statistical community and ask their judgment, they will all agree this

is the right thing to do. If it turns out to be illegal, it won’t happen.

This is not a Census Bureau decision, but it is certainly one that

I strongly support. And it is apolitical. I don’t know who is going

to be the Census Director when this decision is made. I leave with

this administration. It is not about me. It is about the proper way

to organize what is a scientific effort. It is not a political effort. It

is a scientific effort.

Mr. FORD. My concern, Mr. Chairman, I understand the need to

have competition in terms of ideas to generate more ideas and

more thoughts and more voices on this and more opinions, but

what is to stop them from being influenced by politics? We treat

it as if it is a dirty word in some ways, and then we suggest even

outside that we don’t want any of it, but we assume the worst in

people.

Whether it is the National Academy of Sciences, are we going to

check that the director or president of that organization, his or her

history of political contributions and his or her deputy, and then

look at—at some point—when does it stop? When do we just take

people at their word? That Director Prewitt, as much we may differ

on some issues, we are all interested in an accurate count.

There is no doubt that there are implications to an accurate

count. In some areas it is suggested when you are able to count

more minorities—and as an African American Member of Congress,

there is a belief that African Americans vote Democratic more than

Republican, and numbers will probably bear that out, but I don’t

know why that should stop us from wanting an accurate count, just

as if we suggest that perhaps white men vote more Republican and

Democrat. I am not urging white men in my State not to be counted so I can have more African Americans or women to be counted.

I want all folks to be counted, as you do, too, Mr. Chairman.

When does it stop? I can appreciate the recommendations that

we are going to make, and I would recommend that we perhaps invite Mr. Prewitt’s two predecessors and get their thoughts as well.

45

I believe that they told you that, but for the sake of the committee

and the record, perhaps we ought to provide your predecessors an

opportunity to make those statements public.

I know that my time has run out, and I yield back.

Mr. MILLER. Mr. Souder. May I have 30 seconds of your time?

Mr. SOUDER. I am happy to yield.

Mr. MILLER. This Congress and the previous Congresses have

given all of the financial resources needed to do the census. I don’t

think that anyone disputes that. $6 billion is involved here. We

need to do everything that we can with all of the resources we have

to get the very best count.

I am proud that I have worked hard through my position on the

Appropriations Subcommittee to make sure that money was there,

and this goes back to Speaker Gingrich and Hastert, who have provided the financial resources. We need to work together on that

common goal.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. SOUDER. I thank the chairman. I apologize for missing your

statement, and I will try to read it in between here and—I have

had kind of an erratic attendance at this subcommittee, but I was

very involved earlier with Speaker Hastert, and I was involved in

the earlier stages, and we have been through a lot of this.

I share the concern, both a legal-technical concern about the

transfer of authority, and I don’t mean to imply direct questions

about the integrity of you as Director or whoever the new Director

is, but I think—and the reason that I move over to this side, usually the Republicans are on that side, it was making Mr. Ford very

uncomfortable. He is not used to turning to his left to find me, and

he couldn’t sort me out.

Mr. FORD. He wasn’t used to being on my left either.

Mr. SOUDER. I think that everybody, regardless of their political

background, tries to do the best they can once they are given the

responsibility in government. But you still come in with biases, no

matter who are you, whether it is me or you in a given position.

Part of my immediate reaction to a decision like this, and having

been on this oversight committee since I came to Congress and

having dealt with this in agency after agency and wanting to assume the best about every individual and every decision, but it is

no accident that when you, in the language, move it to the Department and say this is a professional decision, that this Department

position is still a Schedule C, it is a political position and it

shouldn’t be—while you are more knowledgeable about the issue

than the Secretary of Commerce, you are still a political appointee.

And one concern beyond the legal concern is an impression given

to the general public that somehow if the Director of the Census

makes a statement as opposed to the Congress, that one is professional and one is political, when in fact we are all politicians

here—you are a representative of a political appointee of a politically elected official, and you are in the political arm, with a staff

underneath you that is a mix, but predominantly not politically appointed. At the same time, we all know, particularly those of us

who have been involved in politics a long time, how we get layers

of bureaucracy and staffing, and how you get promoted and good

assignments internally, and people who share ideas are going to

46

have their most trusted advisers come with shared ideas. And we

have a major philosophical divide as to the ultimate value in how

much we can trust estimating.

I am sitting in a situation and I have been appalled at the unwillingness of people to confront directly the difficulty of what we

are facing here, and that we all know it, and we ought to acknowledge it and try to address this gap.

It is a range of things, but it is not easy to count illegal immigrants, and it is not easy to count people who are homeless because

they move around. They wouldn’t be homeless if they were organized and were willing to be counted. Drug dealers do not want to

be counted. People who are on the lam don’t want to be counted.

Some of my more paranoid right-wing friends don’t want to be

counted. There are parts of Montana, and I don’t mean to isolate

Montana, but that is the news media characterization, and we have

parts of my district—I had somebody come up to me at a parade

who was worried that the ATF was going to come after him, and

he has two guns pointed and he is in a trailer; and I am thinking,

boy, I hope some census worker doesn’t knock on his door.

We have all kinds of people who don’t want to be counted. We

have to figure out how to count them to be fair to everybody. When

you have variations in some cities between 25,000 in the homeless

population and 125,000, that differential in Los Angeles alone

wipes out four of my counties if we estimate at the high as opposed

to the low. It is not a racial argument. It is are my people going

to be cheated if somebody errs on the side of estimating high as

opposed to estimating low.

I know that we have supposedly 125 crack houses in Fort Wayne

that we have—a lot of those have been torn down. It doesn’t mean

that somebody is in them. They move from night to night. That becomes difficult to estimate. And what many of us want to say is

that every exhaustive possibility ought to be done before any estimating is done. And that even in the bonus system, in a bonus system the encouragement should be for exhaustive approaches, not

for speed. Assembly line by stressing speed cannot get as much

qualitative level and then we can jump to the estimating faster. A

possible check in a system like that is a penalty.

If the estimating in your area shows a bigger gap than somebody

in a similar neighborhood, then maybe you should lose your bonuses that you got earlier by going too fast. Private business may

give commissions and bonuses, but there are certain things that

will suggest the inefficiency of census workers. That might discourage different activities, too.

I am just suggesting that ultimately we all know there is going

to have to be some supplement and it is a question of how aggressive it is going to be and whether or not the tilt here—and where

our concern is, is that by transferring this to your authority, it

looks like an attempt of the administration to wash their hands

and say we are going to not be political, and because we are a little

ahead, we are going to kick this to statistics, a form of sophisticated guessing.

Assuming you have dual tracking and different things, it is going

to be fairly accurate, not necessarily to the sub-track level, which

47

is important for local things, and maybe we have ways that we can

make sure that everybody understands that.

Another thing, it is kind of ironic at this particular point in time,

the Secretary of Commerce just went over to be the manager of a

Presidential candidate. Isn’t that convenient, because it makes it

look like he removed—the time was not opportune. If you are on

the other side of the spectrum, this looks like the Presidential candidate doesn’t want to be associated in controversial and swing

areas with the decision, and he tried to make it look like he was

taking it out and away, that it didn’t matter that Mr. Daley was

leaving and kicking it down.

Yes, sometimes we are a little paranoid on our side, but some of

that paranoia has been fairly justified, not always, but sometimes.

And that is why many of us are upset with this, not necessarily

that we are not going to go to statistical sampling and you are

going to bring a little more trust to the statistics than some of us

would necessarily have, and we want to make sure that everything

else has been exhausted first because possibly political control of

Congress is dependent on this; variations of whether my district

gets grants that may depend on this, controls of city councils may

depend on this.

This is a weighty political decision, and we need to make sure

that both sides are represented fairly and accurate. I would appreciate any comments that you would have.

Mr. PREWITT. I would like to address the generic level of your

comments.

Mr. Souder, I must say I would be very, very saddened if this

delegation of authority issue became yet a part of—deepened the

sort of concern among Members of Congress that this is a politically charged census.

I would much rather not have a delegation than have that. I

have spent a lot of time—I came to Washington, quite honestly, not

because I was politically active and so forth, I came to Washington

because I had observed the fact that the Census Bureau had been

characterized as perhaps being able to predesign a census with a

known partisan outcome.

Actually that is a false charge. We would not know how to do

that. If you think, it means 3 years ago we were making design decisions that would affect redistricting 5 years later, and redistricting where, and for what purpose, in which States. The intelligence

that one would need to bring to bear on those technical decisions

that you were making 3 years ago for an impact 5 years later, we

don’t have it. We are not experts in redistricting. We don’t pay any

attention to which Governor of which State has Republican or

Democratic majorities. We simply don’t. We wouldn’t know how to

go about doing that. I don’t think anyone in this country is smart

enough to actually anticipate the partisan impact back when those

design decisions are made.

And so I felt very strongly that—and let me say just a word or

two why I feel so strongly. I don’t think that you can have a

healthy democracy without a healthy number system. The American people cannot hold political leaders to account without social

indicators. When we debate whether education is improving or not,

when we debate whether the quality of health is improving or not,

48

and when we worry about whether inflation is being checked or

not, we are using statistical indicators of those phenomenon.

And when political leaders are thrown out of office, it is often because the American voting public is saying we don’t like the way

things are going. And when they say that, they are looking at statistical data. Democracy requires a very sound national number

system, and I think if the word gets out and it gets to be believed

that the numbers could be politically tampered or manipulated, you

begin to erode confidence in those numbers and that is a dangerous

place to be for society. I feel very strongly about that.

I have tried to conduct myself with the Census Bureau staff in

such a way that we could lessen that charge; and therefore if this

particular thing, this delegation becomes evidence, if you would,

that somehow this is one more attempt to be political, I wish it

would go away. I feel so strongly about trying to take this out of

politics that I don’t want to do anything that leaves that impression.

This wasn’t my decision. This was a Department of Commerce

decision, and you would have to—but I just want you to believe

that I think nothing is more dangerous than to believe that the national number system is subjected to political manipulation or uses.

Mr. MILLER. Let’s complete the first round. We will go to Mr.

Davis, and then Mrs. Maloney will continue the second round. We

are glad to have Mr. Davis with us today.

Mr. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. I had a bill in another committee being

marked, and I apologize for being late. My recollection is that if we

had used adjusted numbers after the 1990 census, we would have

been working as a Nation on a foundation of numbers that contained huge errors, 45 percent errors. That is huge errors.

Mr. PREWITT. That is incorrect, sir.

Mr. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. What would it have been?

Mr. PREWITT. This country for the last 7 years has been making

all of its major economic decisions, such as its inflation rate——

Mr. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. I am aware of that, but what error?

Mr. PREWITT [continuing]. On the corrected numbers. The Bureau of Labor Statistics believes if it had not been using these corrected numbers, it would have mis-estimated employment rates in

this country by more than a million people. The corrected numbers

are better than the uncorrected numbers.

Mr. MILLER. The Census Bureau does not use it for any

intercennial estimates. They do not use the adjusted numbers. My

understanding is for the BLS, they only use them for large population areas, and not for all States. I yield back.

Mr. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. I appreciate the clarification. Our paranoia here when we see the head of the Commerce Department who

was overseeing the census, and has now made this delegation right

before moving over to run the national campaign, you can understand why we are——

Mr. FORD. Would the gentleman yield? You are the chairman of

the National Republican Campaign Committee, so I would not dare

suggest that your questioning is motivated at all by the fact that

you are looking to maintain a majority. I have great respect for

you, but to suggest that——

49

Mr. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. Reclaiming my time, I have nothing to

do with the count. I have zero to do with the count over there. I

represent a district out in Fairfax County. Last time, under their

adjusted figures, we would have lost our percent of the pie in Virginia. So I represent——

Mr. FORD. Mr. Daley said nothing——

Mr. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. Reclaiming my time, I read today in Congress Daily that on Monday the Justice Department asked the Federal court to postpone its consideration of Virginia law, a Virginia

plan that was passed by our State senate and house, and in fact

passed our State house with a bipartisan vote, to use an actual

head count for redrawing legislative districts next year. Were you

or any employees of the Census Bureau consulted on the Justice

Department’s decisions?

Mr. PREWITT. Absolutely not. We don’t pay any attention to those

things, sir.

Mr. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. Can you think why anyone would want

to postpone a decision like that?

Mr. PREWITT. There are legal decisions going on all over the

country. I don’t pay any attention to those. My job is to produce

the numbers. I can’t begin to give you an explanation for those decisions.

Mr. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. Can you understand why anyone would

want to postpone a decision like that?

Mr. PREWITT. I am not even knowledgeable about the question

that you are asking me.

Mr. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. Let me explain it to you and maybe you

can give me an answer. Virginia basically said that they are going

to use the actual enumeration for purposes of drawing their legislative districts within the State. They passed a law that was signed

by the Governor—duly elected officials sponsored this—taken to

court to try to get an early clarification, because when it comes to

drawing the lines, you would like to know what is acceptable and

what may not be acceptable, and it sets a playing field. Now the

Justice Department has intervened and said they want to postpone

this. Can you think of any reason why anyone would want to postpone this?

Mr. PREWITT. No. I am not a lawyer. I don’t follow these things

at all.

What the Census Bureau’s position has been is that we are going

to produce the best numbers we can. Their use is up to the States.

We don’t dictate what States use what numbers. That is not our

job. We are simply producing them.

Mr. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. If a State wants to get a clarification of

what is legal, you don’t have a problem with that or see why it

should be postponed?

Mr. PREWITT. As I say, you have told me more about this than

I had any pre-knowledge about. It has nothing to do with the Census Bureau. It has to do with the Department of Justice.

Mr. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. It all has to do with apportionment,

which your numbers—with two different numbers, obviously you

get two different apportionment resolutions.

Mr. PREWITT. You mean redistricting?

50

Mr. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. It has been used in the court cases, I

think it has been used interchangeably, but there is an argument

that seems to think that there is a difference between apportionment and redistricting. You can understand why they want to get

an early decision.

Mr. PREWITT. Certainly.

Mr. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. Rather than drag this out and forcing it

into next year, the earlier a State could find out what could be acceptable and maybe bullet-proof from a legal attack, that would be

logical it seems to me.

Mr. PREWITT. I am not disputing that so much as I am uninformed about it.

Mr. SOUDER. Would the gentleman yield?

Mr. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. I would be happy to.

Mr. SOUDER. You know you are in a politically sensitive position.

We have had hearings for years in advance about the split between

whether we have an accurate enumerated count versus an estimated count. You know, I assume, that some idea of the—why

there is such a big battle over these figures. Years ago, legislatures—States don’t do counts, so when the Supreme Court ruled

that rural areas were overestimated versus urban areas, the only

numbers that they have to go to are you. States don’t do counts.

The Constitution gives it to you. You have some concept of that history.

Mr. PREWITT. Of course.

Mr. SOUDER. Therefore, you would understand that even though

they are not required to use these numbers, there are no other

numbers. The courts, when they overrule them, would use your

numbers. So when you say that you don’t have an awareness of

how that is done, I understand that you are not necessarily following it directly, but you have a general idea?

Mr. PREWITT. Yes, sir.

Mr. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. Also, these are legal matters that are affected by decisions that you make. You put out two numbers, what

do you expect legislatures to do? I want to clarify my question

again. So no one, no one at the Census Bureau to your knowledge

was consulted by the Justice Department on this?

Mr. PREWITT. No, sir, not to my knowledge; and I don’t know who

it would have been.

Mr. MILLER. Mr. Davis, would you yield?

Ultimately this is going to be decided by the Supreme Court.

They are going to rule whether we use adjusted numbers for redistricting. You don’t have an opinion?

Mr. PREWITT. I really don’t know.

Mr. MILLER. You don’t think any courts will rule on this decision?

Mr. PREWITT. I think courts will rule, yes.

Mr. MILLER. Wouldn’t it be to everybody’s advantage to have the

courts rule sooner than later?

Mr. PREWITT. As I have said in testimony, Mr. Chairman, I was

very pleased with the timeliness of the previous Supreme Court decision. That helped us in planning this census.

51

Mr. MILLER. So this question of using adjusted numbers for redistricting, the sooner that the courts rule, the better off the States

will be?

Mr. PREWITT. The difference in the two decisions is that this decision has nothing to do with our operations. The previous Supreme

Court decision had enormous consequences for our operation. That

is why its timeliness was better, and a year earlier would have

been even better. But this has no implications for what we are now

doing.

Mr. MILLER. It has huge implications to States making redistricting decisions. My knowledge of what I read in Congress Daily, I am

amazed that the Justice Department would not have put off that

decision, and that is what they are doing. I am glad that you are

not involved.

Mr. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. I am glad that the Census Bureau isn’t.

I am appalled by the Justice Department’s decision, but I think it

has been very political in every other aspect of how it has conducted itself. And I think this case shows that once again, in an

election year, it is not going to deviate from that practice.

Mr. MILLER. Mrs. Maloney.

Mrs. MALONEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I think many of your

colleagues raise some important points. I believe we should invite

the Justice Department to come to the next hearing and explain

their point of view. We should have them tell us and explain why

they feel the way that they do. I think that is a legitimate point

that has been raised, and I look forward to that hearing only because some of my friends and colleagues on the other side of the

aisle seem to be disturbed, and they keep raising the point that

Secretary Daley will be going over to join Vice President Gore’s

campaign.

I want to make a historical note in here that Mosbacher, the Secretary of Commerce under former President Bush, he overruled the

Census Director, the professional, Dr. Barbara Bryant, who ruled

that adjusted numbers with modern scientific methods were far

more accurate and that those should be the numbers used.

Mosbacher overruled her professional scientific decision, then resigned and went over and ran the Bush campaign in 1992.

One point that was raised—quite frankly, I didn’t realize until

you mentioned it, Dr. Prewitt, is that adjusted numbers are being

used now by professional statistical organizations because they are

more accurate.

I would like you to respond now, and in greater detail in writing,

which ones are using adjusted numbers because they are more accurate. But before that, I want to make another point to one of my

dear friends and colleagues who kept raising the point that many

people don’t want to be counted. The Constitution, and all of our

directions are that we are supposed to count everyone, whether

they want to be counted or not.

In my district in New York, the local census office is having a

very difficult time because they can’t get past the doormen, and my

office is calling up all of the managers of all of these buildings and

helping the Census Bureau get into buildings that they have been

blocked from going into. But one of the biggest areas that is undercounted, and actually it is the reason that I first got involved in

52

the census, because one of the areas that I work very deeply in is

child care, day-care, and many advocates were coming to me and

talking about the great number of children who were missed and

undercounted in 1990. I believe it was really the largest area of the

undercount. That, as we know, affects all types of planning and

funding formulas.

I would like you to comment on those two points.

Mr. PREWITT. With respect to the undercount of the children, the

odd thing is these are census forms that come back in, so it is not

as if we have not exhausted our procedures and gone to that household and gotten the census form. But we subsequently learn that

children get left off of forms for all kinds of reasons. One of the

major things that the corrected numbers do is to locate the percentage of kids that get left off forms and add that number back to the

census. Nothing more complicated than that.

Mrs. MALONEY. I would like to add, in 1990, 70 percent of the

people missed in the census were missed in households that were

counted, and many of these were missed on forms, as you pointed

out, that were returned by mail. And because of the tremendous

amount of work that the Census Bureau has done, and the local

governments, we do have a tremendous improvement in the address list, and it is likely that the percentage will be higher in

2000. And will spending more time in the field doing the nonresponse followup find these people?

Mr. PREWITT. Well, we designed our processes under scrutiny, of

course, of this Congress and the GAO to be prudent with taxpayer

dollars. We could continue to knock on doors forever. We don’t

think that would improve the count materially. That is six attempts. Indeed, we have cases where we have gone back 12 times.

That is more than was expected to happen. We have very committed enumerators out there.

We do think that at a certain point you get data deterioration as

you move away from April 1, and you get memory and mover problems. So it is our statistical judgment that the sooner we can get

the data, the better. So it is not a rushed census, it is a higherquality census if we get the data closer to April 1.

Continuing to knock on doors, we have been met at the door by

people with guns, as Mr. Souder knows. We have had physical and

verbal abuse. We don’t send people back 12 times when somebody

says, ‘‘You come back, next time it will get worse.’’ We have to

worry about the safety of the enumeration staff. Going back for a

12th time will spend a lot more money, and then you will have a

different set of hearings saying, why did you waste all of that

money going back and back?

Mrs. MALONEY. GAO produced a report that confirmed what you

are saying, and I would like to put that report in the record.

I would like to know from the chairman if he would consider having—I know my time is up—the next hearing with the Justice Department and the Voting Rights Division on why they made this

decision. I think that would be an appropriate hearing for the

Members of Congress and the American public.

Mr. MILLER. We are having two hearings in July, one dealing

with the American community survey issue, which gets to the long

form. I think that would be of great interest.

53

We continue now on the second round, and Mr. Souder is next.

First, though, Mrs. Maloney was talking about the use of these

adjusted—you use the word ‘‘corrected,’’ which is a political term,

and I think it should be ‘‘adjusted’’ data. When you use the aggregate, we average out errors basically. The problem is that at the

block level we have error rates. And our argument and what the

courts are looking at, block level data—and how many people are

in a block? What is the average size of a block?

Mr. PREWITT. Thirty households.

Mr. MILLER. When you adjust a block and you have to add this

virtual person or delete a real person is where you get the high

error rate. And redistricting is done at the block level. You take

away a block there or add a block here, and that is where you run

into errors. The BLS, when you are talking about the population

of the State of California, that is one thing. But we are talking

about redistricting, which is block level data, and that has a high

degree of inaccuracy.

Mr. Souder.

Mr. SOUDER. I would just like to note for the record, which I

didn’t bring up earlier, I want to note for the record that part of

this—first off, whichever party isn’t in power in the executive

branch is certainly going to call you up, whether you spend too

much money or less money. That is what oversight is, by the way.

Part of my frustration has been we are now griping about the

end because—I represent Fort Wayne, IN, and we have had a continuing battle. We cannot get the maps. The local person was still

complaining just a couple of months ago that they didn’t have the

newly annexed maps. We have battled this problem for roughly 2

years now. We also—and the Chicago director was very responsive,

came down to meet with a lot of my urban pastors and leaders in

the community who were very concerned about an undercount. And

Fort Wayne at 220,000 people, roughly, will hopefully have a better

count, because the only place that they advertised for census workers were out at two suburban libraries.

We have this influx—for one thing, I have learned through the

Historic Society, that I have the largest Burmese population in the

United States, and also we do immigration in our office, and because we have one of the dissident professors and two of the legislators, we have got this big influx. We have—I know that we are

going to undercount the surge of Hispanic people in our area because we don’t have any census people out checking them. They

should have gone immediately to the Catholic Church where these

people go, but instead were out in the suburbs. Now we are saying

we are going to have to adjust the count. Well, yeah, if you don’t

have the right maps and don’t have the right workers, we probably

are going to have to do some adjustments in counts. But understand, that is what leads to some of our not completely unjustified

paranoia that we are being a little set up, not necessarily on purpose, because you have a massive thing, and that is what makes

some of us paranoid.

Now, nonresponsiveness, the long form and short form. The long

form is so essential for information, but as somebody who got the

long form—and also I want to praise one other part of your program. By going into the schools, my son, as I was mad about getVerDate 11-MAY-2000 10:35 Jun 07, 2001 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00057 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\72446.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
54

ting the long form and complaining about the questions, my 12-

year-old came over and said his teacher said he was supposed to

watch us fill it out. So I had to compromise my anger as I was

going through the long form. I can understand a lot of people who

may not have had their son there at the moment, or who were even

more upset about what they viewed as intrusiveness, and then it

was blown into the media and that led to other kinds of problems.

But I have a letter that I would like unanimous consent to insert

into the record. It is from Ms. Carol Hugo. It is to her, a portfolio

director, from the regional director, and she is based in San Jose

and it has to do with gated communities.

[The information referred to follows:]

55

56

57

Mr. SOUDER. The line that is in question here—and the code is

cited that says if you are the owner, proprietor, superintendent, or

agent of any lodging facility and you basically refuse to furnish the

names of occupants—but the—or give free ingress and egress

therefrom. But the line that is in question is, ‘‘We anticipate that

you will provide our census enumerators access to the apartment

complexes and information to substantiate occupancy status as of

April 1.’’

That led many of these types of communities to feel that that

was an information request beyond access, because it potentially

puts them into other information. And for those who, rightfully or

wrongfully, are very concerned about government having all kinds

of access to information, has opened up another can of worms and

then led to information going around. Is this official policy that this

can be requested; and if so, on what in the code?

Mr. PREWITT. I want to make certain that I give you a good answer on this, so I may want to write you afterwards. It certainly

was not our intent to try to get Title 13, that is confidential data,

in this manner. We have apartment complexes—I visited one the

other day, for example—where we had not gotten a response from

unit 101, 102, 103 and then 201, 202 and then 306. And I went

with the enumerator and we went to that apartment complex. Well,

101, 102, and 103 were storage bins. They look like addresses, but

they were storage bins. My guess is that is what this intends to

identify: Are there any units which are not inhabitable units? But

if it is more than that, I will get back to you. I prefer not to give

you a complicated explanation. We protect the confidentiality every

step of the way.

Mr. SOUDER. Even if that is the intent, I would suggest that this

type of wording scares people and leads to a lot of problems and

then leads to nonresponse and leads us back into estimating.

If I can ask unanimous consent to ask one additional question.

I had a questionnaire come both to my house in Indiana and to my

apartment in Virginia, and then had a person knock on the door,

and I took the time then to call back to tell that person I can’t be

counted both places. But it led me to just wonder about another

thing: Would I have been estimated and adjusted? How would you

have known that I was a Congressman and had already been

counted?

Mr. PREWITT. The housing unit of the apartment would have

been coded, like seasonal housing. I presume you responded at your

home. Lots of people have two or three houses. The form comes

back, ticked off ‘‘seasonal housing.’’

Mr. SOUDER. How do you know it is seasonal?

Mr. PREWITT. That is a code that we use. You have two homes.

One is your primary residence. You are counted there. Your second

home will be taken off of the master address file. That is this huge

operation that we are about to go into the field now to cross-check.

Mr. SOUDER. You cross-check actual names?

Mr. PREWITT. We actually go back to all of those housing units

and try to determine what their unit status is. That is our job.

Sometimes we ask building managers and they will say that is

somebody who primarily lives somewhere else; that is a vacation

58

home, and that becomes ticked off that way. That is the operation

that we are about to engage in.

Mr. FORD. What if he sent back both of them? How do you know

which is primary and which is seasonal?

Mr. PREWITT. If they both came back in, he decided to break the

law, we wouldn’t find them. We can’t match a response that comes

in from Fort Wayne and a response that comes in from Virginia.

That would be a fraudulent response.

Actually, the accuracy and coverage evaluation system would

find instances of that case, and we would then estimate the total

number of those cases. That is what creates the overcount, people

sending in forms in from more than one house.

Mr. SOUDER. There is no way—let me just have a second. There

is no way for anybody to identify that I am seasonal because I pay,

regularly, monthly rent. My apartment is in an urban area in Arlington. I am wondering if after several visits—and they can’t even

find me. If I had not called back because I happened to one-time

check my phone messages, because we are here late, I commute

back and forth, and I know in this particular complex there are

people who are lobbyists who will come in. Their company may

have an apartment under their name, and I am wondering how

those people—would they be estimated based on the number of people in the apartment? How would you pick up the fact that—the

difference between me and somebody who wasn’t responding?

Mr. PREWITT. What the accuracy and coverage evaluation is, it

goes to 314,000 housing units across the country. We use an instrument which probes and probes and probes. We will go back to a

sample of those kinds of units. That is a sample, and we will probe

until we are certain what the characteristic of that household is.

If the characteristic of that household is somebody who has a primary residence somewhere else, that is what the statistical adjustment handles. That is what the whole purpose is.

We think that it is a superior way than just leaving both of those

records sitting there. As I go back to my opening statement: A census is a series of operations that tries to get what is necessarily an

estimate, closer to the truth. If we stop the census today, we would

have an estimate. We think by additional operations we can move

that estimate closer. We do not think that we can get to perfection.

We do not think that we can get to the identical number of people

who live in this country on April 1, 2000. It is an impractical kind

of goal. So we say how close can we get the estimate to that truth.

Mr. Souder, back on the political thing, if I can, sir, I have

thought, read about, written about, feel very strongly about the

way in which the decennial census has been caught up in a partisan battle. So I don’t mean to suggest that I am not paying attention to that as an academic.

I have written an essay recently which tries to recommend ways

to get out of that. It is counterintuitive. I don’t think that you will

get out of it to get the Census Bureau removed from politics. I

think we can get the data collection removed from politics, but the

application of the data will necessarily be political and legal.

What I am concerned about is the politics are now about how we

collect data, not how we use data, and that is what is not good for

a society. We have to be able to collect the data in as nonpartisan,

59

independent fashion as possible, and then use the data in the political-legal process. The Census Bureau is comfortable with that. We

want to collect the data using the best statistics that we know how

to collect.

Mr. SOUDER. What is extraordinary about the debate is you have

a subcommittee chairman who is actually a statistician, a mathematician. I am a business person, undergraduate and graduate. I

have taken many statistics and operations research courses, done

marketing research, and we are enamored with statistics. Tom has

studied statistics of every district in the country. The irony is you

have arguably on our side more people who are fascinated with statistics than sometimes on the other side. Ultimately, this is really

a political debate of how statistics are used. Figures lie, liars figure; it is the colloquialism. And that is what we have to watch

doesn’t happen.

Mr. MILLER. Mr. Ford.

Mr. FORD. The only way I think we can do what you’ve said is

if we import Martians here, who have no political history and no

history of making contributions to anyone.

Briefly, how does your overall workload compare to perhaps the

last two or three censuses, your overall performance and operations?

Mr. PREWITT. Every major operation has been superior to those

in 1980 and 1990. Does that mean perfection? No. But we are

ahead of schedule.

Mr. FORD. I congratulate you, and we hope that you continue

your good work.

I would make the point again about politics. I don’t know how

we avoid it. Mr. Davis, you are my friend; I would not cast aspersions on any of your questions or motivations. The fact that you are

chairman of a committee whose primary purpose is to maintain the

majority for your party in the Congress, I respect that.

I have a chairman on my side, Patrick Kennedy, and I know that

you and he have a good personal relationship, although you disagree philosophically. I take you at your word when you say certain

things. I could only hope that you would accord my side the same

courtesy.

And to my friend, Mr. Souder, true, there may be folks on your

side who have greater interest and experience in statistics, more so

perhaps than our side; I don’t know, perhaps you have studied this.

But, I don’t think that gives you any more right—I may say we

have visited more schools than you guys, so we are better experts

on education than you are. I wouldn’t dare say that. But I would

hope that the politics of this, we could divorce it, and perhaps it

is impossible to do that and we should just say that.

I do find it interesting that the only people today talking about

politics incessantly have been us. He hasn’t mentioned it. Every

question that we have raised with him, he has denied having any

political biases or prejudices, and I understand that people bring

that to any debate. But to suggest that he should have an answer

to a decision made by the Department of Justice, I think is somewhat asinine.

I don’t know why we would question him and almost badger him

as to what his thoughts are, what he would have us do. No one acVerDate 11-MAY-2000 10:35 Jun 07, 2001 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00063 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\72446.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
60

cused the Conference Committee on Managed Care Reform of waiting for the Supreme Court to make a decision on whether you can

sue HMOs. I would not dare do that. The court has spoken.

We would have as many political reasons on this side to say look,

you are holding this up because you want the court to decide, and

the majority of the court is Republican appointees. They are going

to follow the Republican law and we will get a conference committee report that will favor Republicans. No one would dare suggest

that.

I hope at some point that we can cease this, and perhaps it will

take an election to do this, and the people will have an opportunity

to speak.

We appreciate, Mr. Prewitt, the work that you and your staff

have done here and across the country. I salute the regional director that covers the State of Tennessee, Sue Hardy, and others. You

have done a great job in the face of withering attacks from us, oftentimes unjustified and sometimes justified, and I would hope

that we can give you the support that you need to finish this job,

and I will work closely with Mrs. Maloney. And I must say, she has

been a stalwart and a warrior on our side ensuring funding has

been there. I want to thank her and say, Mr. Prewitt, go back to

work. We have called you before this committee too many doggone

times. Get us an accurate count so we can put aside all of this talk

about politics, apportioning and redistricting, and Mr. Kennedy and

Mr. Davis can go at it and we can see what happens in November.

With that, I yield back.

Mr. MILLER. Mr. Davis.

Mr. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. I wanted to ask you on this final attempt, a lot of attention is being paid to the pace with which the

Bureau is completing its nonresponse followup workload and I

think you have reported the nonresponse followup is completed

ahead of schedule in many cases, with no problems in staffing.

Many offices report that they have come in under budget. I think

that is great.

But I want to understand—the most difficult to count are in the

last 5 percent of the nonresponse followup—yet counting this last

5 percent, the final attempt procedures where we are saying that

we—all final attempts must be completed in a matter of 3 to 4

days. What is the thinking behind that?

Mr. PREWITT. What happens, Mr. Davis, when we get to a certain

point, we just say roughly 95 percent of an area, every case gets

the same treatment. That is, every case gets the full complement.

And what the final attempt is is an organizational way to get all

of the cases in the hands of your best enumerators. So we let a lot

of the enumerators go at that stage. We are down to the last few

hard cases, and we reassign the workload. And then we use a blitz

strategy, because our experience over the years suggests if we blitz

it and go after it, we will get more of those cases in.

After that we go into closeout procedures, and that is a different

procedure after that. But every household gets all of those visits.

At a certain point you do quit trying, because you have been there

and been there and been there. I have had people tell me, I am not

going to answer this questionnaire. We then go to other mechanisms to try to get the household count.

61

Mr. MILLER. I think we need to end to get to the vote. I think

it is very important for this process that you have come forward

monthly. It is not always the highlight of your day or week.

Mr. PREWITT. I do hope that this subcommittee has a hearing

sometime this fall, whenever, that addresses the big question of

how to get the decennial census out of the political environment.

I think that is very, very important. And it has not to do with these

immediate operations, it has to do with the larger health of the Nation’s statistical system.

Mr. MILLER. I ask unanimous consent that all Members and

witness’s opening statements be included in the record. Without objection, so ordered.

I would like to enter several pieces of correspondence from Director Prewitt to me regarding census operations. Without objection,

so ordered. As well as CRS legal analysis of the proposed regulations.

[The information referred to follows:]

62

63

64

65

66

67

68

69

70

71

72

73

74

75

76

77

78

79

80

81

82

83

84

85

86

87

88

89

90

91

92

93

94

Mr. MILLER. If there are additional questions from our members,

I ask unanimous consent that the record remain open for 2 weeks

for members to submit questions for the record.

Thank you again, Director Prewitt.

[Whereupon, at 12:45 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]

[Additional information submitted for the hearing record follows:]

95

Æ