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51–025 PDF 2009

S. Hrg. 111–148 

MAKING THE CENSUS COUNT IN URBAN AMERICA 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

FEDERAL FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT, GOVERNMENT 

INFORMATION, FEDERAL SERVICES, AND INTERNATIONAL SECURITY SUBCOMMITTEE 

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON 

HOMELAND SECURITY AND 

GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS 

UNITED STATES SENATE 

OF THE

ONE HUNDRED ELEVENTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

FIELD HEARING IN PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA 

MAY 11, 2009 

Available via http://www.gpoaccess.gov/congress/index.html 

Printed for the use of the 

Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs 

( 

(II) 

COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS 

JOSEPH I. LIEBERMAN, Connecticut, Chairman 

CARL LEVIN, Michigan 

DANIEL K. AKAKA, Hawaii 

THOMAS R. CARPER, Delaware 

MARK PRYOR, Arkansas 

MARY L. LANDRIEU, Louisiana 

CLAIRE MCCASKILL, Missouri 

JON TESTER, Montana 

ROLAND W. BURRIS, Illinois 

MICHAEL F. BENNET, Colorado 

SUSAN M. COLLINS, Maine 

TOM COBURN, Oklahoma 

JOHN MCCAIN, Arizona 

GEORGE V. VOINOVICH, Ohio 

JOHN ENSIGN, Nevada 

LINDSEY GRAHAM, South Carolina 

MICHAEL L. ALEXANDER, Staff Director 

BRANDON L. MILHORN, Minority Staff Director and Chief Counsel 

TRINA DRIESSNACK TYRER, Chief Clerk 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON FEDERAL FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT, GOVERNMENT 

INFORMATION, FEDERAL SERVICES, AND INTERNATIONAL SECURITY 

THOMAS R. CARPER, Delaware, Chairman 

CARL LEVIN, Michigan 

DANIEL K. AKAKA, Hawaii 

MARK L. PRYOR, Arkansas 

CLAIRE MCCASKILL, Missouri 

ROLAND W. BURRIS, Illinois 

JOHN MCCAIN, Arizona 

TOM COBURN, Oklahoma 

GEORGE V. VOINOVICH, Ohio 

JOHN ENSIGN, Nevada 

JOHN KILVINGTON, Staff Director 

VELVET JOHNSON, Professional Staff Member 

BRYAN PARKER, Staff Director and General Counsel to the Minority 

DEIRDRE G. ARMSTRONG, Chief Clerk 

(III) 

C O N T E N T S 

Opening statement: Page 

Senator Carper ................................................................................................. 1 

WITNESSES 

MONDAY MAY 11, 2009 

Hon. Michael A. Nutter, Mayor, City of Philadelphia .......................................... 3 

Hon. Michael N. Castle, a U.S. Representative in Congress from the State 

of Delaware ........................................................................................................... 6 

Hon. James Baker, Mayor, City of Wilmington .................................................... 9 

Camille Cates Barnett, Managing Director, City of Philadelphia ....................... 12 

Thomas Mesenbourg, Acting Director, U.S. Census Bureau, U.S. Department 

of Commerce ......................................................................................................... 23 

Norman Bristol Colo ́n, Executive Director, Governor’s Advisory Commission 

on Latino Affairs, Office of Governor Edward G. Rendell ................................ 25 

Patricia A. Coulter, President and CEO, Urban League of Philadelphia ........... 28 

Wanda M. Lopez, Executive Director, Governor’s Advisory Council on Hispanic Affairs ......................................................................................................... 30 

ALPHABETICAL LIST OF WITNESSES

Baker, Hon. James: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 9 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 45 

Barnett, Camille Cates: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 12 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 47 

Castle, Hon. Michael N.: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 6 

Colo ́n, Norman Bristol: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 25 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 58 

Coulter, Patricia A.: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 28 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 66 

Lopez, Wanda M.: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 30 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 69 

Mesenbourg, Thomas: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 23 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 52 

Nutter, Hon. Michael: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 3 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 41 

APPENDIX 

James White, Policy Coordinator of the Philadelphia Association of Community Development Corporations, prepared statement ....................................... 71 

(1) 

MAKING THE CENSUS COUNT IN URBAN 

AMERICA 

MONDAY, MAY 11, 2009 

U.S. SENATE, SUBCOMMITTEE ON FEDERAL FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT, GOVERNMENT INFORMATION, FEDERAL SERVICES, AND INTERNATIONAL SECURITY, OF THE COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY

AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS, Philadelphia, PA 

The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 1 p.m., in Kirby 

Auditorium, National Constitution Center, Philadelphia, PA, Hon. 

Thomas R. Carper, Chairman of the Subcommittee, presiding. 

Present: Senator Carper and Representative Castle. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR CARPER 

Senator CARPER. Welcome. It is an honor to be here at the National Constitution Center. I am Tom Carper, and I Chair a Subcommittee in the U.S. Senate that has jurisdiction over, among 

other things, the U.S. Census. And it is great that we are here at 

the Constitution Center because among the duties that are spelled 

out in the Constitution for us to undertake on an ongoing basis is 

every 10 years to conduct a Census and to count as best as we can 

the number of people who live in this country. 

Earlier this morning, back in our home State, I and former Governor Castle visited a public school in our State. And as a congressman, he still visits a lot of our schools, as do I. And we held a town 

hall meeting, Mayor, right in your city, my city, where we had the 

fourth and fifth graders from Kuumba Academy, K through 5, a 

charter school, who came and was good enough to open up their 

school. And we had a great 60 minutes on the Constitution. And 

among the things that they learned was that in the Constitution, 

it actually says every 10 years you count the people that we have. 

The kids asked great questions about why do we do this. What 

if somebody died the day before you do the count or after you do 

the count? What if a baby was born? Do you count people in jail? 

Do you count people that are homeless? How do you do all that? 

Great questions from fourth and fifth graders. 

We are honored today to have the Mayor of Philadelphia, Michael Nutter. Mayor, welcome. 

Dr. Camille Barnett, welcome. You should be welcoming us because this is your city. This is a great place, by the way, and I am 

delighted to be here with our mayor. Both the congressman and I 

live in the City of Wilmington. Jim Baker is our mayor. 

2 

Mayor, it is great to be here with you, as always. 

I want to welcome one and all, including our audience, to the latest in a long series of hearings that our Subcommittee has held on 

the preparations for the 2010 Census. Today’s hearing will focus on 

the challenges associated with accurately and cost-effectively counting America’s cities. My thanks again to Mayor Nutter and to the 

National Constitution Center for hosting us. 

The 2010 Census is rapidly approaching with Census Day now 

less than a year away. On April 1, 2010, one of my favorite days 

of the year—but on April 1, 2010, the Census Bureau will embark 

upon what many have described as the largest peacetime mobilization in American history. With a $15 billion budget and an army 

of 1.3 million Census takers, the Census Bureau has the great responsibility to ensure that nearly 300 million residents of our country are correctly counted. 

Finding and counting nearly 300 million individuals in the correct location is clearly a daunting task. Census taking has become 

even more challenging in recent years as our Nation’s population 

has grown steadily larger, more diverse, and increasingly difficult 

to find. These challenges are compounded by the fact that, for a 

number of reasons, people have become more reluctant than they 

have been in the past to participate in the Census. 

During the last Census in 2000, significant progress was made 

in improving response rates and reducing the number of Americans 

who went uncounted. Despite this success, undercounting remained 

a problem in some communities. The Census Bureau’s own data revealed that in 2000, some 6.4 million people were missed and another 3.1 million were counted twice, producing a net undercount 

of some 3.3 million people. 

Here in Philadelphia, the 2000 Census failed to count more than 

19,000 residents. And in my home State of Delaware, more than 

7,000 people living in New Castle County, home to the City of Wilmington, our largest city, were missed. 

What makes these errors particularly problematic is their impact 

on a number of historically, hard to count populations. Minorities, 

renters and children, for example, are more likely to be undercounted by the Census, while more affluent groups, such as college 

students and individuals with vacation homes, are more likely to 

be counted more than once. In 2000, Asians were missed nearly 

twice as often as whites, African Americans missed nearly three 

times as often, and Hispanics were missed four times as often. 

Reaching out to those who historically are hard to count is even 

more important when you consider that for every 1 percent of the 

population that does not respond to the Census, the Census will 

have to spend about $90 million to go door-to-door in an effort to 

try to count every single person. 

An inaccurate 2010 Census will also leave many States without 

their fair share of Federal dollars. The undercounting that occurred 

in Delaware in 2000 likely cost the State about $1 million in Federal funding. At a time when localities are so desperate for funds, 

leaders like Mayor Nutter and Mayor Baker, are forced to raise 

taxes and fees, and consider difficult budget cuts. Making sure that 

all communities get the money that they deserve from the Federal 

3 

1The prepared statement of Mayor Nutter appears in the Appendix on page 41. 

Government should be a priority. And by virtue of your presence 

here today, you are demonstrating that it is indeed a priority. 

Finally, because Census data is used to apportion seats in the 

U.S. House of Representatives, inaccuracy results in undercounted 

communities being underrepresented in Washington. 

So, as the Census Bureau begins its final preparation for 2010, 

we need to make sure that it is reaching out aggressively to historically undercounted groups. With less than a year until Census Day 

and the confirmation of our next Census Director, hopefully just a 

couple of weeks away, we look forward to the testimony of our witnesses and learning how Congress can best partner with the Census Bureau as it works for achieving its goals of a complete and 

accurate Census in 2010. 

Normally, I would call on Congressman Castle to make his statement at this time. But the mayor of Philadelphia, Mayor Nutter, 

is in a tight schedule. We promised to get him out the door by 4 

o’clock this afternoon—no, I am kidding. [Laughter.] 

We promised to get him out the door by about 1:20. So I am 

going to yield to him and ask him to say whatever he would like 

to say. And we are honored that you are here. Delighted to be in 

your city. We know you are going through a tough time here, as 

we are, just about everywhere. We wish you well and look forward 

to working with you going forth. 

Mayor Nutter. 

STATEMENT OF HON. MICHAEL NUTTER,1 MAYOR, CITY OF 

PHILADELPHIA 

Mayor NUTTER. Mr. Chairman, Senator Carper, thank you so 

much for this wonderful opportunity and, of course, for the accommodation with regard to schedule. I teased Congressman Castle 

when we were in the back that I will be pretty brief and I will yield 

the balance of my time to the gentleman from Delaware. And so, 

I will move on, but I do really appreciate this opportunity to speak 

on such an important issue. 

Mayor Baker, thank you so much for your great leadership and 

work. And I also I want to welcome our Managing Director, 

Camille Barnett, as well. 

For the record, good afternoon. My name is Michael Nutter, 

Mayor of the City of Philadelphia. I would like to thank you for 

this opportunity to speak about the difficult challenges faced by the 

City of Philadelphia in trying to ensure an accurate population 

count in the 2010 Decennial Census. 

A 1999 survey by the U.S. Conference of Mayors estimated that 

Philadelphia stands to forego $2,263 in Federal and State funding 

for every person not counted in the Census. Given Philadelphia’s 

current fiscal crisis, with a $1.4 billion deficit over the next 5 years, 

it is imperative that we get the 2010 Census count right. 

Getting an accurate population count means the Census Bureau 

must count every single person living in the City of Philadelphia 

by April 1, 2010. With a population of well over 1.4 million as of 

2008, based on the most recent Census Bureau estimates, that is 

a daunting, enormous task. The two biggest challenges, as we see 

4 

it, facing the Census Bureau for Philadelphia are the following: 

One, locating and contacting every household residing in the city 

regardless of their living situation and, two, once they are contacted, encouraging them to accurately respond to and return their 

Census forms. 

Accurate address listings are critical to the success of this process. As you know, the Census Bureau uses a master address file 

based on the list of addresses from the U.S. Postal Service. Under 

the Local Update of Census Addresses (LUCA) program, local governments are afforded an opportunity to review the master address 

file for errors and omissions and to submit address corrections. The 

Philadelphia City Planning Commission began working with the 

Census Bureau on this process back in November 2007. 

Most Philadelphians live in traditional housing units which will 

be easy to count. However, as a result of the policies incentivizing 

the conversion of vacant and deteriorated commercial and industrial buildings to multi-family residential properties, a substantial 

number of Philadelphian residents now live in non-traditional 

structures. We need to ensure that the addresses for all of these 

additional and sometimes hard-to-find units are recorded in the 

Census Bureau’s master address file. 

In addition, the City Planning Commission matches the Census 

Bureau’s master address file against a combined file of other city 

address records. In April 2008, the city submitted to the Census 

Bureau almost 56,000 additional addresses not listed in the master 

address file. This represents roughly 10 percent of all city addresses. We are working to review and update all city records of new 

housing developments to ensure the master address file is the most 

accurate and complete postal mail address list possible. 

The downturn in the economy also likely presents challenges to 

obtaining a complete population count. The displacement of people 

through job loss, mortgage foreclosures and housing abandonment 

will complicate the enumeration process. While Philadelphia has 

not seen the great increase in foreclosures experienced by other 

parts of the country, in some parts of our city it may be difficult 

for address canvassers to accurately identify occupied housing units 

amidst foreclosed properties. In neighborhoods that are plagued 

with vacant and abandoned structures, it will be difficult to get 

Census enumerators to follow up on Census forms that are not returned. 

As I mentioned earlier, getting an accurate population count is 

dependent not only on contacting all residents but also on making 

sure they return their Census forms. Research by the Census Bureau notes that, traditionally, hard-to-count populations include 

economically disadvantaged populations; groups with high poverty 

rates; high unemployment and low educational attainment levels 

and linguistically isolated populations; and foreign-born populations with limited English-speaking skills living in ethnic enclaves. Based on this research, African Americans are disproportionately represented in the economically disadvantaged category 

and Latinos are disproportionately represented in the linguistically 

isolated category. 

Reaching these disadvantaged populations to get an accurate and 

complete count will be difficult not only because of language barVerDate Nov 24 2008 11:26 Nov 05, 2009 Jkt 051025 PO 00000 Frm 00008 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 P:\DOCS\51025.TXT SAFFAIRS PsN: PAT
5 

riers but also because of suspicion over how these data will be 

used. Therefore, significant and continuous outreach efforts are 

needed to educate Philadelphia’s African American, Latino, and 

other disadvantaged communities about the importance of the 2010 

Census. 

Because of the diversity of Philadelphia’s foreign-born population, outreach efforts must also be multilingual. The Census Bureau must ensure that adequate multilingual Census materials and 

enumerators are available to assist the various foreign-speaking 

communities. They must also work with local partners to allay the 

concerns of foreign-born residents who may fear reporting to the 

INS, or deportation, or others who are just suspicious of government. 

To respond to these challenges and achieve an accurate count, we 

are developing a comprehensive approach to improve on the city’s 

2000 Census response rate of 56 percent. The basic elements of this 

plan include, (1) issuing a mayoral executive order which will engage city departments and agencies in the planning and execution 

of outreach plans; (2) developing a citywide campaign, such as the 

Complete Count Committee, which will target education, marketing and outreach to hard-to-count populations; (3) establish a 

multicultural network on Census 2010, which will guide our efforts 

to reach immigrant and newcomer communities. This initiative will 

also target the LGBT community and populations in the city with 

high concentrations of undocumented residents. And last, work 

closely with our local school district to promote the Census Teaching Guide throughout our neighborhood schools. 

We will, of course, continue our diligent efforts to ensure that the 

master address file is complete, accurate and includes all newly 

constructed and converted housing units so that Census forms are 

properly delivered; cooperate with institutions of higher education, 

city correctional officials and housing providers for elderly, ill or 

other disadvantaged populations to accurately record all group 

quarters’ population, since many people living in the latter situation may also be eligible for programmatic assistance; and support 

comprehensive follow-up by Census enumerators to count the residents of neighborhoods most seriously impacted by the economic recession and property foreclosures. 

Finally, it is critical that the Census Bureau begin to make partnership funds and other resources available to local communities 

for increasing public awareness about the upcoming Census. It is 

only through communication and public consciousness raising that 

we can hope to have a successful, accurate count. 

In closing, the City of Philadelphia and my entire administration 

pledges to work closely with our local Census Bureau office to overcome the challenges I have described today and obtain a complete 

count in the 2010 Census. 

Thank you very much. 

Senator CARPER. Mayor, thank you very much for an excellent 

statement. Obviously, the City of Philadelphia has a great deal at 

stake in terms of getting an accurate account. And from what I 

have heard, what we have heard here this afternoon, a lot of the 

things that need to be done to ensure that we count here in PhilaVerDate Nov 24 2008 11:26 Nov 05, 2009 Jkt 051025 PO 00000 Frm 00009 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 P:\DOCS\51025.TXT SAFFAIRS PsN: PAT
6 

delphia, to the best of our ability, every single person, I think we 

are well underway. 

Mayor Nutter. Thank you. 

Senator CARPER. I know we promised we would excuse you so 

you can head on. I know you have an 1:30 engagement. You are 

good to come. These are tough times for government. We wish you 

the very best—— 

Mayor Nutter. Thank you. 

Senator CARPER [continuing]. And look forward to working with 

you going forward. 

Mayor NUTTER. Mr. Chairman, I look forward to working with 

you and, of course, Congressman Castle as well. The partnership 

and relationship between Philadelphia and, of course, Wilmington, 

Pennsylvania and Delaware is very strong. Thank you. 

Senator CARPER. Congressman Castle, before I turn to you, I understand there is a 3-minute video that is being prepared to be 

shown. 

Can somebody tell me whether or not we are ready to roll that 

now? 

[Video played.] 

Senator CARPER. Well, I sure am glad I do not have to follow 

that. That was great. But a man who is up to the task of following 

that video, and any video I can think of, is our dean of the Delaware delegation in the U.S. House of Representatives, former lieutenant governor, and my friend, Congressman Mike Castle. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. MICHAEL N. CASTLE, A U.S. 

REPRESENTATIVE FROM THE STATE OF DELAWARE 

Mr. CASTLE. Well, thank you, Senator Carper. I am very pleased 

to be here. I am not a member of this Subcommittee. In fact, I am 

not even a member of the Senate. So, I am very pleased to be able 

to be here with you and to be able to share some thoughts with our 

distinguished panelists we are going to hear from today, and to 

talk about the Census a little bit. 

It is very interesting that we are in the Constitution Center, the 

basic structure by which our government is run, and Census is who 

we are. And this next Census is vitally important. They are all vitally important, but this next Census is vitally important. I think 

lessons have been learned from past Census difficulties, and I appreciate what I have been reading and hearing about some of the 

programs. 

I did go to the opening of the Census office outside of Wilmington, Delaware and feel that the people I spoke to there were 

well prepared to move forward. And I think we have good people 

working in this. And I think some of the comments being made 

today by our panelists are extraordinarily important. 

I mean, we need to understand the significance of the Census. 

We hear about earmarks, for example, in terms of Federal funding. 

But the bottom line is that most Federal funding for programs is 

done by population, not by earmarks. It is done by how many people may live in a State or how many people live in a city. And the 

decision is made that you get such a percentage of dollars, whatever that may be. 

7 

You heard Mayor Nutter. I am not sure I got the figure exactly right, but I think he said $2,363 for every person not counted in 

terms of dollars lost in various programming. That is fundamentally accurate, even if my number is not quite right, because money 

is lost because people are not accurately counted. And when you 

are a city such as we have represented in this panel, you lose 

money from the Federal Government; you lose money from the 

State government. They are also dependent upon the Census 

checks. 

The various cities in making decisions about where services are 

going to be are impacted by Census numbers. Businesses make decisions in terms of location, businesses, nonprofits, whatever. There 

is just a lot of dependency upon the Census in terms of where we 

are going as far as the future is concerned. 

The issue of suspicion was raised by Mayor Nutter. Why don’t 

people send back this form? There are a variety of reasons. I think 

they are all self-apparent, but we need to review them. One is that 

the people may not be here legally. They may not be properly entered into the United States of America or they may have a relative 

who is in that position and they make the decision of not sending 

in any forms to the Federal Government. 

In reality, the Census has nothing to do with that and does not 

cross over into immigration issues, and that should not be a problem. But, nonetheless, it is a problem in the minds of a lot of people. In fact, I saw something in the newspaper this morning about 

a Hispanic group that was urging people not to fill in the Census 

form for that very reason. That needs to be discouraged. 

He mentioned language as an issue, and that could be a problem. 

If people do not speak the language, and they receive a form in a 

language they do not speak, they may not want to go about getting 

it into their language, be it Spanish or something else. As a result, 

that form is not filled in. 

Somebody may have a problem in their background. Perhaps 

they committed a crime or something. They are nervous about anything coming from the government. They are not inclined to fill in 

forms in these particular circumstances. Somebody else might be illiterate. They just may not understand what it is they received. It 

is nice that we have the mailing addresses, and I think the Census 

is doing a great job of doing that, but people simply do not want 

to necessarily respond in that particular circumstance. They do not 

quite know what to do, and they just go ahead and throw it out. 

Then there are those who just do not care. Everyone of us probably, I know I have, have gotten forms in the mail and said, oh, 

the heck with this, and you throw it away because you just do not 

feel like fooling with it. I hope we do not do this with the Census 

checks. I try not to do that, by the way. But I hope we do not do 

that. So there are a lot of reasons, and there are probably others, 

why people do not necessarily respond to the initial mailing. 

Then you get into the whole circumstance of how much we have 

to pay in order to get people to go out into neighborhoods, to knock 

on doors. But all the reasons that I have already given you, in 

many instances, apply to a person coming to the door. They still 

may not want to be helpful and cooperative. Perhaps the person 

answering the door could be counted, but perhaps there are eight 

8 

other people living there that never somehow get brought into it. 

So that is an issue as well. 

So we need to do a lot. I think that the Census people are doing 

a great job. Some of the programs that we probably are going to 

hear about today, the Be Counted program, which makes Census 

questionnaires available at various public forums, as I understand 

it, is an important program. And the questionnaire assistance centers are important as well, so people can necessarily get help in 

getting their questions answered. 

We have already heard something—I will not reiterate them—of 

people not counted, of dollars lost as a result of that. And I know 

that is a concern of Mayor Baker’s as well as Mayor Nutter’s, and 

it should be of all of us. That is an issue. And often, these are the 

very people who need the most help, by the way. And so, for that 

reason, we need to make sure that they are counted and we are 

moving forward. 

I think we are all in this together. Now, I believe this country 

is best served by the fact that we count each and every person who 

is here and make sure the various division of money pursuant to 

Census and decisions made by other groups is followed up as a result of that. 

For those of you who know Delaware, you realize that we only 

have one member of Congress. That is why the senator can call me 

the dean of the Delaware delegation. I am not remotely concerned 

about getting a second member of Congress. We have to almost get 

an increase of 400,000, or something of that nature. But I am very 

concerned that in Delaware, in Pennsylvania, and in every State in 

this country, we need, if possible, to count every single person. 

And, hopefully, today’s session that Senator Carper has called will 

help do that, will dissuade people that this is problematic in any 

way, and will encourage everyone to get involved in doing something which I think is going to be a tremendous help in the governance and the fair apportionment of many different programs in this 

country. 

I thank you for the time, Senator. 

Senator CARPER. Congressman Castle, thanks so much. That was 

a great statement. And thank you very much for making time to 

be here. I was just thinking if we could maybe annex one county 

of Pennsylvania, get another 400,000 people, where you would have 

some company in our delegation there in the House. But I do not 

know. We will have to negotiate with the mayor and Governor 

Rendell. 

Mr. Baker has been our mayor in Wilmington, where the congressman and I live, for over 8 years now. He and I both spent 

some time, in our younger part of our lives, in Ohio. I think he was 

born in Fostoria, and later on served in the Air Force. We were 

both veterans. And I appreciate and salute him for his service to 

our country. Elected to Wilmington City Council. 

What year was it? 

Mayor BAKER. In 1972. 

Senator CARPER. One of the youngest ever elected to city council 

in the history of our State. I do not know if they had those child 

labor laws then, but he started at an early age, and became the 

first African American, I think in the history of our city and the 

9 

1The prepared statement of Mayor Baker appears in the Appendix on page 45. 

history of our State, to be elected as president of Wilmington City 

Council. 

He has been a mayor for 8 years. We have had 8 good years 

under his leadership. And they are challenging now, as they are for 

Mayor Nutter and for all other kinds of people, but in terms of actually balancing our budget and running surpluses in terms of trying to make sure a lot more folks who wanted to be homeowners 

got to be homeowners, and expanding our business opportunities. 

And he does a great job down on the river front of the Christina 

River. We are just very pleased to be represented and led by him 

in the City of Wilmington. 

I am going to call on Mayor Baker, and then I will introduce Dr. 

Barnett. 

Mayor Baker, thank you so much for joining us today. 

Mayor BAKER. Thank you very much. 

Senator CARPER. We should have carpooled up here, the three of 

us. Congressman Castle and I joke about doing that a lot. 

Mayor BAKER. Well, you guys keep changing positions, so I do 

not know how long that is going to work. 

STATEMENT OF HON. JAMES BAKER,1 MAYOR, CITY OF 

WILMINGTON 

Mayor BAKER. Thank you very much, Senator Carper. And it is 

good to see you, Representative Castle. I feel like we are still in 

Delaware, actually, talking to each other. 

Senator CARPER. Well, this used to be Delaware. 

Mayor BAKER. I know. 

Senator CARPER. I tell people this used to be Delaware—— 

Mayor BAKER. The three counties, the lower counties, used to be 

part of Delaware. 

Senator CARPER. You gave Pennsylvania its independence. 

Mayor BAKER. One time I put in a bill to succeed from Delaware 

and go to Pennsylvania, but they would not let it pass. 

But anyway, I appreciate you having me here this afternoon, to 

talk about the Census and how important it is. And I think Mayor 

Nutter hit most of the salient points as to why, but I will just go 

through some of the issues of Wilmington. 

For example, our population is 65 percent non-white. We have 20 

percent in terms of the population being below the poverty level. 

Twenty-six percent of our population is 17 years or younger. And 

the city’s Hispanic population has increased 41 percent since 1990 

to 2000, and it continues to grow. And the other problem is that 

it is not just from one Hispanic group; there are a variety of different ethnic Hispanics from different countries that are coming to 

our city also. 

We also suffer from illegal conversions, which I think the mayor 

was talking about, people living in places that they ordinarily 

would not be living in, and also illegally. And there is a significant 

homeless population which has a transitory population to it. And 

we also have people that move by large numbers within short periods of time, such as 6 months in a location, at a residence or an 

apartment, and then they move to another location. And then withVerDate Nov 24 2008 11:26 Nov 05, 2009 Jkt 051025 PO 00000 Frm 00013 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 P:\DOCS\51025.TXT SAFFAIRS PsN: PAT
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in a year, our population in the city shifts dramatically from 6 

months to a year, and that keeps continuously transferring people 

in and out of our city and from neighborhood to neighborhood. 

We also have a traditional undercount as most cities have suffered. We have all of the different groups that the Census has identified as undercounted in our city, but rental units usually make 

up most of the undercounted in our city. Fifty percent of our city’s 

housing stock is rental. It used to be different. It was about 70 percent homeowners. Now, we are down to 50 percent homeowners, 50 

percent rental. We have a huge population, 25 percent, headed by 

females, in terms of our city. And some of the things that we are 

recommending is certainly what the mayor has previously talked 

about, as updating information in terms of the Census Bureau 

leading up to the count in April. 

We also believe that the well-funded—and I think he referenced 

that also—media campaign is critical to letting people know about 

the Census, what is and what is not, some of the things that Congressman Castle was speaking about that many people fear about 

the Census, that it is a way of finding information about them, private or otherwise. 

The other problem is that the media efforts should not be just 

through radio and TV—the traditional modes. I really think that 

there needs to be a strong effort to do door-to-door, to do the mailings, and all the other things. Bilingual messaging as opposed to 

singular are critical. I think, just like in a political campaign, that 

we have all been in before, what do we need? We need people to 

hit the streets. We do not need a lot of messages going out on the 

telephone and on TV. Of course, I cannot afford TV; you guys can. 

But anyways, we do not just need the TV messages in the traditional mode. We really need people who can go out on the street 

and understand the populations that they are dealing with. Sometimes it is the messenger that makes a difference as opposed to 

just having people talking to people. Also, we feel it is imperative 

to have a secretary appointed for the Commerce Department. 

I do not need to repeat the Census in terms of the problems, in 

terms of education and all the rest, which we have found is a critical point as to why some people do not get involved in terms of 

filling out the information, and I will not give you those statistics. 

The mayor actually helped me very much because I really cut 

down the—I was re-leafing through every page I could take out 

while he was talking. Most of you know me; I hate text. I hate 

reading speeches. And if I do not have to, I will not. I am sort of 

like Joe Biden. I get into trouble because I talk off the cuff. 

Senator CARPER. You might have to run for vice president next 

time. 

Mayor BAKER. But anyways, I think that we all know that it has 

to be well organized, everybody working together. We have worked 

with committees, the nonprofit community, the church community. 

I think one group that is left out of dealing with Census are the 

landlords. Landlords come in contact with their people all the time. 

Now, sometimes the landlords do not want anybody to know who 

they have in a house either because they know they are either into 

drugs or something else. And they get cash payments instead of 

real payments, so they do not have to declare it on their taxes. So 

11 

they do avoid sometimes the legal side of things just so they can 

make the money. But there are good landlords who—we have a 

group in our city that we work with on a regular basis. It would 

make a lot of difference in terms of who is there and who is not 

there and who can be contacted. 

Last, we feel that the President can have a lot to do with promoting the whole issue of the Census because he is well respected, 

even though Fox and Rush Limbaugh and all those guys always 

beat up on him. But they are the minority now and who cares what 

they think. 

So I think that it is very important because we lose a lot of 

money by not having the count correct. And we are willing to cooperate with the Census Bureau and others who wish to make this 

work out in a fine fashion so we can get a true figure of who is 

really there. And I think it makes a lot of difference for the schools 

as to what kind of resources they need to teach. It makes a lot of 

difference in terms of carrying out the law, in terms of law enforcement and understanding what things are and are not. It makes it 

easier to govern if you can understand all of your population as opposed to just part of the population. 

So that is my take on it, and I appreciate very much having both 

of you here and thank Mayor Nutter for having us in his city. If 

Pennsylvania wants to give us some more people—of course, Mayor 

Nutter does not want another person down there running for Congress. He is perfectly happy being the only one. 

So thank you very much for having me. 

Senator CARPER. Mayor, thank you very much. That was a wonderful statement, and we are grateful that you made the time to 

be here. Thank you for your leadership of our city and for your testimony today. 

Dr. Camille Barnett, I said to Mayor Nutter as he was getting 

ready to leave, and we shook hands here at the middle of the 

stage—I said to him, ‘‘You know, I could barely see Dr. Barnett’s 

lips move when you spoke, Mayor.’’ He acknowledged that he had 

been working on that for a while, and you have to be quite good 

at it. 

But I understand you are the Managing Director for the City of 

Philadelphia. 

Ms. BARNETT. I am. 

Senator CARPER. And I am told that you have the responsibility 

for the management of all city operations, and you also have more 

than 10 years of experience in city management. 

Would that be this city or other cities as well? 

Ms. BARNETT. Other cities. 

Senator CARPER. Well, what other cities? 

Ms. BARNETT. What other cities? Sunnyvale, California; Dallas, 

Houston, Austin—— 

Senator CARPER. Did you say Sunnyvale, California? 

Ms. BARNETT. Yes. 

Senator CARPER. Where I used to live when I was a naval flight 

officer. How about that? We call it sunny Sunnyvale. 

Ms. BARNETT. Sunnyvale. Lots of cities in Texas, and Washington, DC, and then here in Philadelphia. 

12 

1The prepared statement of Ms. Barnett appears in the Appendix on page 47. 

Senator CARPER. Great. And how long have you been the city 

manager here now? 

Ms. BARNETT. Since the mayor was elected, so a little over a 

year. 

Senator CARPER. OK. Does it seem that long? 

Ms. BARNETT. Yes. [Laughter.] 

Senator CARPER. Would you care to tell us—— 

Ms. BARNETT. There has been a lot going on. 

Senator CARPER. Well, we are glad you are here. Thanks for taking on a tough job, and you are recognized to speak. 

Ms. BARNETT. Great. Thank you. 

Senator CARPER. If you get into about the second hour, I will 

probably rein you in because we want to get to the second panel. 

Ms. BARNETT. Actually, I think my job is also easier. I am just 

going to underscore some of the points that Mayor Nutter made. 

STATEMENT OF CAMILLE CATES BARNETT,1 MANAGING 

DIRECTOR, CITY OF PHILADELPHIA 

Ms. BARNETT. For the record, I am Camille Cates Barnett, and 

I am Managing Director for the City of Philadelphia. There are several reasons, that I think Mayor Nutter summarized, that an accurate account is important to the people in Philadelphia, and I think 

in most of the big cities, but particularly big cities that are on the 

East Coast. 

The first reason that it is important to us in Philadelphia is like 

in the Federal and State Governments, we use the Census for our 

own political jurisdiction drawing. So for our city council districts, 

as well as many of our other administrative districts, we use the 

data from the Census. Our numbers are a little different than the 

one I saw in the film about the amount of Federal money that is 

distributed based on population counts. I guess the 2007 Brookings 

study estimated that it was $377 billion. So you cannot ignore the 

importance of the Census data being correct for you to get allocations from Federal and State Governments that really do match 

your population. 

There are over 170, at current count, Federal and State programs, that use population in their funding formulas, and this is 

before we count anything with the Recovery Act. So these are just 

the ones that we have been dealing with since before the Recovery 

Act. 

The figure that the mayor quoted is from a 1999 survey from the 

U.S. Conference of Mayors, and it really brought this funding formula down to the very level of our local economy. For every person 

that we miss in the Census, the U.S. Conference of Mayors estimates that Philadelphia foregoes $2,263. And as the point has been 

made before, often the people who are missed are the people who 

are most in need of the funding that is missed. So it is doubly important to get these traditionally undercounted populations served. 

We have also been using the Census information in our own 

planning and programming effort. One of the things that we have 

started with this new Administration is a program called Philly 

Stat, which is like a city stat program in other places, where we 

13 

look at population trends and city distribution of services and what 

results we are producing. All of that information uses Census information for us to analyze our own effectiveness by neighborhoods. 

So we need to know not only the baseline of where we have been 

but also to track our progress. 

All of us are interested in economic recovery, and it is important 

to notice and to note that the Census data is also used by the private sector in ways that very much influence the economic health 

of large cities because this is how they decide a lot about their investment decisions, the number of people and also educational 

level, where the population is. There are many pieces of information that the Census collects that really is important in terms of 

location and expansion decisions that the private sector makes. 

Alyssa Stewart Lee, in her article from the Brookings and Urban 

Market Initiative, cites the U.S. Census Bureau as being ‘‘the foundation of private sector demographic data used for retail decisions.’’ 

So in this time when we are really interested in the health of our 

business communities, having accurate information from the Census is important. 

We also know that this is not a small task, but we know that 

it is one of our most important. In fact, I brought along the Philadelphia plan, which is our one-page strategic plan that we have put 

on a business card. And one of the things that we do is to have 

measures of how well we are doing. Because we know that people 

vote with their feet, it is important for us to use our total population as one of our key performance indicators. In fact, for Mayor 

Nutter’s recovery and jobs objective, which is one of four that we 

have for this city, one of the key performance measures is to add 

75,000 people in population in the next 5 to 10 years. 

It is important, particularly for cities that have gone through economic transition and population downturns, to be able to demonstrate that we are on the way back. And the way that we can 

demonstrate that is to be sure that everyone who is here is counted 

fairly. So for a number of reasons, it is important for us that the 

Census number is right. 

Now, as the mayor said, there are two major challenges that 

Philadelphia faces that I do not think are different from other 

places, but we certainly see them here. One is locating each household, and two is getting the form returned. So one of the things 

that we have been working with in terms of the local Census Bureau here is getting those address lists complete. 

One of the things that the mayor mentioned that I think is worth 

emphasizing is that, particularly in the redevelopment of Philadelphia, a lot of our redevelopment strategy has the use of non-traditional structures for housing. So these are economic development 

activities, not only the kinds of non-standard ways that the mayor 

talked about from Delaware, but really part of our way of re-using 

buildings and getting the population to stay in the city. And these 

are the kinds of multi-unit, non-traditional places that are typically 

undercounted. So because of our particular development pattern 

and our particular economic strategies over the last decade or so, 

it is particularly important to the City of Philadelphia that these 

residential units be counted. We have estimated that since the last 

Census, since 2000, we have added more than 22,000 of these conVerDate Nov 24 2008 11:26 Nov 05, 2009 Jkt 051025 PO 00000 Frm 00017 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 P:\DOCS\51025.TXT SAFFAIRS PsN: PAT
14 

verted units. So it will represent a large portion of the address file 

that we need to make sure is complete. 

I think the mayor mentioned that for this and other reasons, we 

have already given the Census Bureau an additional 56,000 addresses for Philadelphia alone. Just as a way of estimating that, 

that is about 10 percent of all of our addresses. So it is a significant amount for the City of Philadelphia. 

Once this process is completed and we get started, we do not 

have, as you know, but 120 days to complete the master address 

file and to update and review all the recordings. We want to be 

sure that we have as complete a count as possible and are really 

looking forward to working in close partnership with the Census 

Bureau here to make sure that that is accurate. 

So we also want to be sure that we get people that are not only 

living in our traditional whole units or these converted housing 

units, but also residents who live in group quarters, such as school 

or colleges, which we have a lot of in this area, nursing homes, 

boarding homes, correctional facilities, and shelters for the homeless, several of the kinds of populations that this hearing has already indicated are traditionally undercounted. 

So these are the things that I think are of interest to us. But I 

think one of the things that has really been brought to mind recently is how much this particular process affects us now that we 

have a downturn in the economy. Because one of the things that 

we notice in this downturn is that it also means displacement for 

people. So when people lose their job, or have their mortgages foreclosed, or abandon housing, this is going to complicate the counting 

process. 

So Philadelphia has not seen as large an impact in terms of 

these negative effects of the economic downturn as other cities 

have, but I do not think there is a single large city in the country 

that has not had some of this. And a strategy so that it is fairly 

accounted for in the population count is something that I think is 

in all of our best interest. 

So one of the things that we also know is that from the research 

on what is undercounted, Philadelphia as a city, as was talked 

about in Delaware and other major cities, the people who live in 

cities are the people who are most likely to be undercounted, those 

who are poor and those who are linguistically isolated. One of the 

things that I think is important to recognize is that 44 percent of 

all current Philadelphians are black and 29 percent live in poverty. 

The reported unemployment is about 9 percent in this population, 

and we believe the number is probably higher. 

So our black population also has a lower level of educational attainment; 23 percent have a high school diploma, and only 13 percent have college degrees. You will notice on our Philadelphia plan, 

these are things that the mayor has targeted as changes that we 

want to produce in the City of Philadelphia, but we also know that 

while we are getting the Census data, that we need to be cognizant 

that these are people that need special outreach. 

You have already talked about Latinos being disproportionately 

represented. In the linguistically isolated category, Latinos in 

Philadelphia count for 11 percent of our estimated population, 

which is almost 155,000 Latinos. Three-quarters of this population, 

15 

which is a little over 110,000, is from Puerto Rico. For Philadelphia 

Latinos, 43 percent live in poverty; reported unemployment is 7 

percent. And, again, the true number is probably much higher. And 

educational attainment for the Latino population also trails the 

citywide average; that is 39 percent have less than a high school 

diploma and only 10 percent have college degrees. And very significantly, over a third of this population speaks English less than 

well. 

One of the things that we have done is to pay a lot of attention 

recently, in an initiative called Global Philadelphia, to address the 

language capacity of many of the people that we serve. And we 

know from the work that we have done to try to make our own 

local government services accessible to these populations, that we 

are not just talking about Spanish. We have many different languages that are regularly spoken in Philadelphia, and they include 

things like Vietnamese, Chinese, and Ukrainian. There are many 

of these populations that we are struggling to reach, and I expect 

that we will have not only linguistic but cultural barriers in many 

of these populations to get full participation. So we want to respond 

to these challenges to receive the accurate count. 

In Philadelphia, the last Census we had a 56 percent response 

rate. We want that to be higher. We think it needs to be higher 

to really be confident in the count. And so, Mayor Nutter has instructed us to do several things to help that. 

First of all, he plans to issue a mayor’s executive order, which 

will instruct city departments and agencies to continue their planning and the execution of these outreach plans. The mayor’s executive order will also develop a city-wide campaign, which is much 

like your complete count committees that you talk about, to reach 

these hard-to-count populations. 

We will also establish a multicultural network on Census 2010 

to guide our efforts to reach immigrants and new-coming communities. This initiative will also target the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and 

transgender communities and populations in the city with high 

concentrations of undocumented residents. And we will be working 

closely with the school district, as the mayor said, to promote the 

Census Teaching Guide throughout all of our neighborhood schools. 

We will continue our work on the master address file to be sure 

that everyone is counted. We will work with our institutions of 

higher education, correctional officials, and other places where 

groups of people live to be sure that we are counting all of those. 

And we will support a comprehensive follow-up by the Census 

counters to count the residents of neighborhoods that are most seriously impacted by poverty, foreclosures, and other issues. 

Finally, as the mayor said, we think it is important that the Census Bureau begin to make partnership funds and other resources 

available to local communities. You can appreciate that there is not 

a lot of extra money around to begin some of the outreach that is 

really needed to have an accurate count by April 1, 2010. So we 

want to participate very closely in the communication process and 

the public consciousness raising so that we can all achieve a successful count. 

In closing, I want to thank our local Census Bureau for their cooperation and outreach to us and to pledge our support to them 

16 

and to you to be sure that Philadelphia is a model of how a big 

city can get the count right. Thank you. 

Senator CARPER. Dr. Barnett, thank you so much. A wonderful 

statement as well. 

Let me ask a couple of questions, and then I will kick it over to 

Congressman Castle. But this is one for each of you. 

When you think of the things that we need to be doing with the 

Federal Government, we need to be doing within the Census Bureau, to enable you to do a better job to ensure that we fully count 

the people, whether it is Philadelphia, Wilmington, or what are one 

or two of the things that you believe the Census Bureau needs to 

do more of, less of, so that we can empower you? 

Mayor BAKER. Well, actually, over the last Census, it really came 

down to people being able to go out and directly contact people. It 

worked out very well because you had so many partners working 

together with the city and with the Census Bureau, and I think 

that is critical. And the media, just a heavy concentration of information, and I think that made the difference as to what we did get. 

I think ours was in the 60 percentile, 63 percent, compared to 

the State, which was 70. We were about 7 percent off from the 

State. But that would not have happened without all the energy 

and the resources available to go out and get people and to contact 

them. 

Senator CARPER. And let me just revise that question a little bit. 

Dr. Barnett, I am not sure where you were working 10 years ago, 

or even 20 years ago, but if you will recall the cities and towns that 

you were working in during the 1990 Census, maybe the 2000 Census, lessons learned, things that are particularly helpful, maybe 

you do not see happening this time. It may still be early, but things 

that were really helpful in those jurisdictions to count as best we 

could every person. 

Anything come to mind? 

Ms. BARNETT. Well, probably 20 years ago, I would like to say 

that I was not working in another city, but I was, and had been 

for quite a while. And most of my career to that point had been 

in Sunbelt cities, Dallas, Houston, Austin, and also in California. 

And I think the major issue in those cities had to do with being 

sure that there was an accurate reflection of the growth. And so, 

since those were areas where populations were booming, there was 

a real interest in making sure that all the new population was 

counted, from the immigration, from other cities in the country, as 

well as other parts of the world. 

But the issues are the same in terms of the concerns about who 

is counted and who is not. It may vary from one jurisdiction to another in terms of what the makeup is, but the cities in this country 

now are quite diverse. So you can expect the linguistic problem to 

be there. You can expect the poverty problem to be there. You can 

expect the cultural issues about concerns of returning forms to be 

there. 

So I think there is, actually from my experience, more continuity 

and concern than there is in differences and concern, although they 

may be for different purposes. We do not want to look like we have 

lost or gained in population more than we have, but it is important 

that we get an accurate count. So those are the things. 

17 

Just to comment also on the first question that you asked about 

what I think would be useful to do, the preparations so far have 

been, I think, the kinds that we would expect that are appropriate. 

It would be useful to have some of the money to do some of the 

communications earlier rather than later. But I also think that 

there is a significant new amount of data that is going to be developed very quickly through the Recovery Act. Cities will be reporting on this money, where it goes, what jobs are created. And that 

set of data can also be helpful in double-checking us in terms of 

other data that we have to count population. 

People who are doing weatherization, for example, will be going 

to many of these houses before the Census Bureau needs to go. And 

so, making sure that the information that is available and is being 

developed is used, I think will be something that you can help us 

with at the Federal level. And the State and the local level need 

to do the same thing. 

Senator CARPER. All right. Thank you. I have some more questions, but Congressman Castle, please join in. 

Mr. CASTLE. Let me ask you this question. 

I appreciate, Dr. Barnett, your listing various things we could do 

on a local level, but one thing that struck me, as, actually, Mayor 

Baker was talking, that we saw in Delaware last month I think, 

was something that our U.S. Marshal, Dave Thomas, organized, 

working with ministers and going to them, and then organizing a 

session whereby they were able to have a lot of people who had 

committed crimes, perhaps owed fines, or had not reported on probation, whatever, relatively minor things, come in and be resolved 

on the spot. 

I was stunned at the number who came in. In fact, people with 

more serious issues came in, could probably expose themselves to 

prison or whatever it may be. But the ministers got behind this. 

They had all the necessary personnel there to resolve issues right 

on the spot. And I thought it was highly effective. And it just occurred to me—and I agree with everything you are saying about all 

we should do, but I am trying to think sort of outside the box a 

little bit about what we can do locally in our major cities and 

towns, especially on the East Coast. 

Is something like that even practical—and maybe I should be 

asking this of the Census folks—or is this going beyond the norm? 

It seems to me that if you could organize sessions with the Census 

people, if you got the ministers and community activists involved, 

suggesting that there are not repercussions to all this, we just 

want to make sure everybody is counted; you had people there who 

could speak whatever the languages are, which are essential to 

count people in particular circumstances, and outreach, in our case, 

the Latin American community center, whatever—and try to get 

people to come forward that way who might otherwise be shy about 

coming forward. 

I mean, maybe they are not parallel programs and maybe that 

would not work. But is that another way of trying to bring people 

out who might otherwise be hesitant about coming forward and 

being counted when they get something in the mail? 

Ms. BARNETT. Yes. We were very successful with that initiative 

in terms of trying to clear up some of the backlog in our criminal 

18 

justice system. Our faith-based community is certainly one of the 

groups that we would use for outreach because they are actively involved. 

I think one of the points that the mayor made is important, too, 

which is to look beyond traditional media outreach, so not only the 

person-to-person that you would get through the faith-based community, but not forgetting that radio and face-to-face communication through community activities that people are already involved 

in really help the trust level in this area. 

So I think, yes. I think we should be innovative in a way that 

we try to get the information out as well as getting the information 

back. A lot of it will depend on our hiring policies for the enumerators. We want the people that we hire to be able to be a credible 

representative in their community. So diversity in the hiring is also 

a critical component in what we are going to do for outreach. 

Mayor BAKER. I concur with most of that. I think the other thing 

that should be considered is that as long as you got this non-fear 

of what will happen if I do this, if I fill it out or send it back or 

whatever, if that could be diminished amongst a lot of people—and 

it is not just people who speak different languages that fear this. 

It is people who have been born in the United States or whatever. 

They think it is going to be used against them. 

If we could diminish the fear issues and use all these innovations, I think it would, obviously, get us more people who would respond to it. But the non-fear that we are not going to arrest you 

if you come in and get your stuff cleared up made hundreds of people—I mean, it was around the block and everything, people from 

all over. We had 100,000 KPS’s out on people. So I think that if 

we could clear up that kind of thing, and, of course, meeting the 

different populations, it would make a lot of difference. 

Mr. CASTLE. The other thing that struck me in your comments 

was the use of landlords. That is a little tricky I suppose, but the 

bottom line is, in both of our cities, you do have a lot of landlords 

who own properties, single-family homes as well as big apartment 

buildings, who could probably be very helpful if they are willing to 

share information in terms of knowing who lives there or whatever 

it may be. I do not know, first of all, what the legality of all that 

is, and, second, how cooperative they would be. But that is an interesting source for trying to determine who could respond or who 

does not respond. I do not know how that could be put together. 

Mayor BAKER. Well, I think if they would work with their tenants as opposed to their giving a list of these who are all the people 

that I rent to—and provide information back and forth, and make 

it as non-threatening as could be, it could work, as opposed to having them as the teller of the information. 

Mr. CASTLE. Thank you very much. That is very helpful. 

Senator CARPER. I am going to ask you a couple of questions that 

you have spoken to either directly or indirectly. But I want to go 

ahead and repeat them. I will ask you to just respond to them very 

briefly, please. 

In my opening statement, I said that both Delaware and Pennsylvania are among the places for which there is a significant 

undercount. I think 2000 Census shorted the Pennsylvania population by about 100,000 people, and of those, almost 20,000 lived 

19 

right here in Philadelphia. There are about 12,000 folks in Delaware who were missed. 

Based on your knowledge, what impact did the undercount have 

on your respective cities? 

This is difficult, Ms. Barnett. I am not sure where you were 10 

years ago, but you could use that as an example if you would like. 

And, Mayor, I think 10 years ago you were the president of the city 

council. 

Mayor BAKER. Well, I think we lose a lot of money from the Federal Government because of all those programs that require population. And I think when you look at a small State and a relatively 

small city like Wilmington, it means a great deal because those are 

things you cannot do. So funds for one person or a staff person 

doing a street, or whatever it might be, is significant. So losing 

those numbers makes a lot of difference to us. And we cannot make 

it up, and we do not want to—like you were saying, we do not want 

to have false figures, but we certainly want to be accurate in terms 

of having the numbers and not get cheated out of money that the 

government keeps and not give us. 

Senator CARPER. All right. Thank you. Dr. Barnett. 

Ms. BARNETT. One of the things that we have talked about is the 

impact of just the overall number. And I think that it does mean 

that we have an inaccurate view of what is going on in this city 

and we also get less money, but there are also some effects of the 

detail of the population that we have not spoken to specifically, 

particularly things like educational level. That is used significantly 

in location decisions for the kind of economy that we have now. 

And so, having that misrepresented has kind of a double-whammy 

effect because people look at what kind of workforce is available in 

the city or the region and make location decisions based on that. 

So it is important not only to get the total count right, but it is important to get the other information that the Census collects, and 

to get that right as well. 

I mentioned in my testimony the work that we are doing trying 

to track our results in terms of the people who live in Philadelphia. 

And in many of our services, the thing that drives our own allocation has to do with the information about poverty and other kinds 

of activities, other kinds of information that is available through 

the Census. 

Senator CARPER. All right. Thank you. 

Again, for both of you, I think it has been proven that the partnership program was an effective tool in reaching out to communities of color. We have talked about that. One of the ways in 

which local governments can help, and in this case are helping, is 

by participating in the local update of a Census address program 

to ensure that all addresses and maps that the Census Bureau will 

use to deliver the questionnaire and conduct non-response followup are current, and, hopefully, that they are accurate. 

Would you just briefly describe your overall experience in participating in the address update program and explain why it is important for local governments to have input in this process, if you 

would, please? 

Mayor BAKER. Well, I think all the things that were said before 

makes a lot of difference. We have our planning department, and 

20 

other departments are working on this right now to make sure that 

we can get as much accuracy as possible. But it takes a lot of people. I mean, we cannot just take our planning department or our 

other departments and say all these people are totally responsible 

for something else when they have other responsibilities. 

So it does intervene in that. But the important fact is that we 

are cooperating, and it has been such a good relationship—I remember the 2000 Census. It was a good relationship between the 

various people from the Census Bureau on down. And I think it 

makes a difference if we are working together early on and dealing 

with each because every community is a little different no matter 

how we want to look at it. 

In Wilmington, we are used to knowing each other from top to 

bottom, so it is a little bit different. But we do know that there are 

a lot of new people, growing populations, that we would like to 

know. The Mexican population in Wilmington is growing astronomically. We have people from Jamaica. We have people from all 

the different islands and South America. And we have the Korean 

population, Chinese population. All these populations are there in 

one form or another, and it would be good to know. And by working 

together, I think that is the main thing that has helped us. 

Ms. BARNETT. Just a quick comment on the mayor’s comment 

about it is hard to get the people who do this to be dedicated to 

all the Census work when they have everything else going on. And 

that is one of the things that I think might be something that could 

be taken into account when you are thinking about doing this. 

If you look at cities, now, with the economic downturn, there is 

very little money to fund the kind of analysis that makes it possible to have these accurate counts. We are extremely fortunate in 

Philadelphia that we have a strong foundation of community. And 

one of our foundations has indicated that because of the tremendous economic and social impact of the Census information, they 

are willing to help us in terms of doing some of the statistical analysis and verification that will help us get an accurate count. And 

that little bit of money goes a long way, and that is certainly something that might be something that could be facilitated at the Federal level. 

Senator CARPER. All right, good. 

A related question. You have already, at least partly, answered 

this question as well. But in addition to participating in the local 

update of Census address programs, what other roles do you believe are vital for local government in the implementation of the 

2010 Census? Again, you have spoken to these in part. Just briefly 

mention them again and any others that come to mind, please. 

Mayor BAKER. I think we have pretty well hit it; if the resource 

is there and we start early enough, we organize well, and we do 

the multi-informational source, actually people touching people, 

using churches, whatever format is out there for us to use. That 

is what we do best, is to know that community and who and what 

can do the job best. And I think that is where the Federal Government then ties into that because we do not have the resources. Our 

downturn—in 3 months, we went from a bad surplus to a big deficit. It was just like falling off the cliff. 

21 

So we do not have all the resources that we used to have available to us, so we do have to depend on others to do it. But I think 

that is the best that we can do, is get all that kind of work done. 

Senator CARPER. Do you want to add anything, Dr. Barnett? 

Ms. BARNETT. No, that is fine. 

Senator CARPER. Dr. Barnett, in your testimony, and also in 

Mayor Nutter’s testimony, you raised the issue of non-traditional 

housing patterns, particularly in multi-unit buildings, some of 

which were not historically residences but served other purposes. 

But you talked about how a situation can pose unique challenges 

to the Census Bureau and address canvassing, and also in non-response follow-up activities. 

For many of these residences, mailed questionnaires, actually, 

just may never reach the intended recipient because unit numbers 

are confusing or in some cases not even in existence. As a result, 

communities with a high proportion of such residences are at an 

unusually high risk of undercount. 

What specific challenges do you believe the Census Bureau will 

face with respect to housing units of this nature, and what adjustments will you recommend that the Census Bureau make in order 

to address these challenges? 

Ms. BARNETT. Well, I think the first thing is to be sure that the 

master address file is correct. So the partnership that we are working with in terms of identifying these structures and the number 

of units that they represent, and making sure that we all know 

where they are, is important in the master address file. And then 

I suspect that we will have to come up with some new ways of 

making sure people get the form and get it returned, and that may 

be a place where owners of the buildings or managers of the buildings may be important for certain populations, as well as community groups, community development corporations and other community organizations that know about and have facilitated these 

kinds of conversions, could be very helpful to us in terms of credibility of what we are doing and why it is important to turn the 

form back in. 

Senator CARPER. All right, good. Congressman Castle, any further questions? 

Mr. CASTLE. No. Thank you. 

Senator CARPER. All right. 

We want to thank you both very much, and certainly to Mayor 

Nutter as well, for taking time in your schedules to be here with 

us today. As it turns out, both the City of Wilmington and the City 

of Philadelphia, as well as our respective States and other States 

and cities, have a whole lot at stake here. And it is important that 

we get this right to the best of our ability. 

To the extent that we get more people to respond initially to the 

mailings, that reduces our cost and improves the likelihood for a 

better outcome. But in a situation where we have not just funding 

decisions for State and Federal Government that flows to cities and 

States, that grow out of our Census, but also the election of members of Congress, county government, city government, there is a 

whole lot at stake. And, clearly, you have that in mind, and we appreciate very much the attitude with which you are approaching 

22 

this part of your duties, given everything else that you have on 

your plates. 

So thank you very much. With that, we will bring on our second 

panel. 

We are delighted that you have joined us. I appreciate, especially—Mr. Mesenbourg, I appreciate your being here and listening 

to the first panel. And I hope that was of some value to you and 

to the folks that you lead. 

It is Mesenbourg, right? Is that correct? 

Mr. MESENBOURG. Yes. 

Senator CARPER. Has your name ever been mispronounced? 

Mr. MESENBOURG. Maybe once or twice. 

Senator CARPER. But you serve today as the Acting Director of 

the Census Bureau, and you have been serving in that capacity for 

I believe about 4 months; is that correct? Currently overseeing the 

planning and implementation and the operations for the 2010 Census. You previously served as Associate Director for Economic Programs at the Census Bureau, where you managed the Census Bureau’s economic Census, the Census of government, and over 100 

monthly, quarterly, and annual surveys. Mr. Mesenbourg received 

his masters in economics from Penn State, a local product, and did 

his undergraduate work at Boston University. 

Thank you for being here today and for your service. 

Norman Bristol, do you pronounce your name Colo ́n? 

Mr. COLO ́ N. That is right, Colo ́n. 

Senator CARPER. Bienvenido. 

Mr. COLO ́ N. Gracias. 

Senator CARPER. Welcome. 

Appointed by Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell as Executive 

Director to the Governor’s Advisory Commission on Latino Affairs; 

Commonwealth’s Advocate Agency for its Latino residents. In this 

role, Mr. Colo ́n makes recommendations to the governor, to State 

agencies, to legislature, local and county governments on issues of 

importance to the Latino community in Pennsylvania. And he also 

serves as the governor’s liaison for the Latino community, ensuring 

that State government is accessible, accountable, and responsive to 

the needs of Latinos. 

Welcome. 

Pat Coulter was appointed President and the Chief Executive Officer of the Urban League of Philadelphia in 2002. She is the first 

woman, I understand, to lead the Philadelphia organization in its 

90-year history. Ms. Coulter also serves on various nonprofit boards 

and associations. She holds a Bachelor of Science degree in music 

from Knoxville College and a masters in education from the University of Louisville, the home of the Cardinals, as I recall. 

Finally, we have Wanda Lopez. Ms. Lopez is Chair of Governor 

Jack Markell’s Consortium on Hispanic Affairs, which is focused on 

increasing access to education and improving the quality of life for 

our State’s Hispanic population. She is also the Executive Director 

of the Governor’s Advisory Council on Hispanic Affairs. 

Delighted to see you again. Thank you so much for coming up 

here to Philadelphia and spending this time with all of us. 

23 

1The prepared statement of Mr. Mesenbourg appears in the Appendix on page 52. 

We are going to call on Mr. Mesenbourg first. If you would lead 

us off, and then we will just go right down the table, Mr. Colo ́n, 

Ms. Coulter, and Ms. Lopez. Thank you. 

STATEMENT OF THOMAS MESENBOURG,1 ACTING DIRECTOR, 

U.S. CENSUS BUREAU, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE 

Mr. MESENBOURG. Thank you, Senator Carper and Congressman 

Castle. It is an honor to participate in this hearing. 

Two hundred and twenty-two years ago, the Founding Fathers 

recognized that a complete and accurate count of the population 

was a cornerstone of democracy. And the 2010 Census marks the 

twenty-third time the Nation has undertaken this great national 

and civic responsibility. 

Mr. Chairman, your invitation letter cited two concerns from the 

2000 Census, an undercount in Philadelphia and a low mail-back 

response rate in Wilmington, Delaware. Counting everyone once 

and only once, reducing the differential undercount, and increasing 

the mail-back response rate are our top priorities. Let me quickly 

describe the keys to achieving these objectives. 

First, as was mentioned earlier, the Census really is an enumeration of addresses, so our first job is to ensure that our address 

list is complete, comprehensive and up to date. The first critical 

production operation of the 2010 Census, address canvassing is 

now underway. At peak, we had 140,000 employees walking the 9 

million blocks in the United States and validating and updating 

145 million addresses. I am pleased to announce that the handheld computers have performed exceptionally well and operations 

are running well ahead of schedule and are almost complete in 

Philadelphia and in Delaware. 

This fall, for the first time, we will conduct the address canvassing of some 270,000 group quarters. Those include nursing 

homes, dormitories, etc. We also are working with local government 

and advocacy groups, in cities such as Philadelphia and Wilmington, to identify an update our roster of shelters, soup kitchens, 

and mobile food stations as we prepare for our service-based enumeration program next March. 

Other innovations that will improve the 2010 count include the 

first short-form only Census, 10 questions, 10 minutes; the first use 

of English-Spanish bilingual report forms, and we will mail those 

to 13 million Hispanic households. Questionnaires will also be 

available upon request in Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese, and Russian. 

This will also be the first time we do a replacement mailing of 

2010 Census forms to traditionally low mail-back response rates, 

and we have added two new coverage questions to the 2010 form 

that we hope will help include incorrect omissions or duplicates. 

We are in the process of establishing 30,000 questionnaire assistance centers and 40,000 be-counted sites. And our language guides 

will be available at the questionnaire assistance centers in 59 different languages. 

Well, getting households to respond requires that they understand that filing their Census form is easy, it is important, and it 

24 

is safe. And these messages are core to our much improved and expanded communication campaign. This campaign is multifaceted, 

employing and integrating paid advertising, public relations, a very 

robust partnership program, as well as an expanded Census in 

Schools program. Our goal is to deliver the right message, through 

the right media, in the appropriate language, at the right time. 

The Recovery Act provided an additional $100 million for the 

communications contract and an additional $120 million for partnership programs. These funds will be directed primarily to reaching and motivating hard-to-count segments of the population. 

While paid advertising can educate, inform, and motivate households and individuals, the Census 2000 experience demonstrated 

that Census Bureau partners serve as a powerful and trusted advocate that can effectively reach segments of the population not persuaded by advertising. Our partners, who are trusted voices in 

their community, can work with local organizations, and they have 

credibility in terms of the safety and the importance of the Census. 

Elected officials in the Philadelphia region already have committed to establish 95 complete-count committees, made up of leaders from government, business, social organizations, faith-based organizations, and local community groups. And I believe my esteemed fellow witnesses earlier testified or are considering establishing complete-count committees, and we thank them for that. 

In Pennsylvania, partnership staff have already obtained commitments from over 350 community organizations and leaders, 

with 89 in Philadelphia. In Delaware, 70 partnerships, including 35 

in Wilmington, have either been entered into or are pending. Well, 

thanks to the Recovery Act, we will be tripling our partnership 

staff in the Philadelphia region from 54 to 145 staff. Those people 

will be hired by the end of July. Additional partnership staff hired 

locally will permit us to reach out to many more local organizations. These trusted voices can allay fears and convince members 

of the local community to complete and return their 2010 Census 

form. 

Mr. Chairman, Congressman Castle, we are well positioned to 

achieve our constitutional mandate of counting everyone in the 

U.S. and its territories. Our operations are not designed to count 

most of us; they are designed to count all of us. This is a daunting 

task, but we are prepared to fulfill it. So thank you. 

Senator CARPER. Mr. Mesenbourg, thank you so much, and 

thanks again for your leadership. We are having a hearing I think 

this coming Friday with the gentleman who has been nominated to 

be the new Census Bureau director. And we will hopefully have 

someone there to give you some backup and some additional leadership. But thank you for stepping up in the interim. 

Mr. Colo ́n, please proceed. I am going to ask you to move your 

name tag in so it faces the audience just a little more directly. I 

want everybody to know who you are. 

25 

1The prepared statement of Mr. Colo ́n appears in the Appendix on page 58. 

STATEMENT OF NORMAN BRISTOL COLO ́ N,1 EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, GOVERNOR’S ADVISORY COMMISSION ON LATINO 

AFFAIRS, OFFICE OF GOVERNOR EDWARD G. RENDELL 

Mr. COLO ́ N. Chairman Thomas R. Carper, Congressman Michael 

Castle, I will be remiss if I do not mention that you are the sole 

member of the Subcommittee on Federal Financial Management, 

Government Information, Federal Services, and International Security that is here with us today in Pennsylvania. That shows a lot 

of commitment. 

Ladies and gentlemen, good afternoon and welcome to Pennsylvania. I would like to commend the presence of Fernando Armstrong, who is the regional director of the U.S. Census Bureau office here in Philadelphia, and, of course, a partner that has been 

working with us for more than a year, Thomas Mesenbourg and 

the staff of the U.S. Census Bureau. 

Mr. Chairman, I am Norman Bristol Colo ́n, Executive Director of 

the Governor’s Advisory Commission on Latino Affairs for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. I am grateful to you for inviting me 

to this so important and timely hearing. It is symbolic that this 

hearing is taking place in this landmark city and in this landmark 

building for such an important discussion, and the relevance of the 

U.S. Census work for generations of Latinos and urban America. 

According to the Pew Hispanic Center, the population of Latinos 

in the United States changed from 35 million to about 45 million 

in 2007, representing 15 percent of the U.S. population. Sixty percent of Latinos are native born, and this population growth has 

been noted and has created challenges and enormous opportunities. 

Today, we have more Puerto Ricans living in the U.S. mainland 

than on the commonwealth island of Puerto Rico. As national chair 

of the U.S. Council of Latino Affairs, representatives from various 

U.S. State Latino councils and commissions, we support and partner with the U.S. Census Bureau, the U.S. Hispanic Leadership Institute and other local, State and national organizations in pushing 

for an accurate and successful decennial 2010 Census through the 

national aggressive awareness campaign Hazte Contar Census 

2010: Makes Dollars and Cents. 

The result of the Census plays a key role in determining funding 

for the placement of schools, roads, hospitals, and child care, 

among other things. It also contributes to supporting the need for 

social services programs based on current population at the local 

and State level. As representatives of the Latino Affairs offices 

across the country, we are committed to working together with the 

U.S. Census Bureau to ensure a full count of our Latino communities in 2010, and thus effectively meeting the needs of our Latino 

constituents. 

Ensuring that every Latino is accurately counted in the 2010 

Census is an integral part of a greater agenda for social justice, political representation and community empowerment. An undercount will have an economic and educational disadvantage to our 

community, a community that today is the largest minority ethnic 

group in the Nation, yet, Mr. Chairman, it also has the highest 

high school dropout rates and unemployment rates in America. 

26 

I quote a statement by Angelo Falcon from the National Latino 

Census Network. Mr. Falcon recently said that ‘‘the challenges facing an accurate Latino count by 2010 Census, in light of the negative environment created by anti-immigrant and anti-Latino sentiments in this country, will be enormous.’’ Other challenges that 

will have a great impact that was noted before is that this community is a very mobile community due to many factors: Lack of trust 

in government; hiring practices by the U.S. Census; the socioeconomic and educational levels, to name a few. 

Mr. Chairman, I urge you to request the U.S. Census Bureau develop a plan that will reach the undocumented and the documented 

the same way. Through your sincere dedication, Mr. Chairman, we 

trust you will make sure that every Latino in Pennsylvania and 

around the Nation is accurately counted in the 2010 Census by 

urging Congress to use its congressional power to make sure the 

Federal Government adheres to the constitutional mandate to 

count every person in the United States of America; identify strategies for Census 2010 bilingual marketing; and seek for assurance 

that information collected in the 2010 Census will be completely 

private and confidential and not be reported to the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. 

If current trends continue, the U.S. population will grow to about 

430 million in 2050. Eighty-two percent of this increase will be due 

to immigrants arriving from 2005 to 2050 and their U.S. born descendants. The Latino population is the Nation’s largest minority 

group and is expected to triple in size and account for most of the 

population growth from 2005 to 2050. Latinos will make up 29 percent of America’s population in 2050. And if we have an 

undercount, Mr. Chairman, today, in the 2010 Census, it will diminish the potential of this community and it will have a great impact on future generations of Latinos in this country. 

In Pennsylvania, the Latino population has grown steadily since 

1990, 31 times faster than the rest of the population, and has accounted for more than 50 percent of the population growth in the 

past 8 years. Data collected in the U.S. Census affects how billions 

of dollars in Federal and State funding is given to communities 

that are suffering, especially the Latino community that I am honored to represent in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. 

In the last Census, Mr. Chairman, more than 1 million Latinos 

were not counted in the United States. Over the past decade, 

Latinos have become the fastest growing demographic in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. With more than 560,000 Latino residents and the trends pointing to a continuation of that growth, the 

2010 Census would publicly demonstrate the prevalence of Latinos 

across the country. Additionally, to better assess what Latinos need 

in the next Census, it is important to examine what provisions currently exist in the U.S. Census Bureau. 

History shows that an incomplete and inaccurate Census denies 

Latinos a right granted by the Constitution of the United States, 

a right to fair representation at all levels of government. An error 

in population data deprives Latinos further resources needed to assist communities in forming public policy. 

Many times we have friends in the U.S. Congress like yourselves, 

like you, Senator, and the congressman, but if we do not draft pubVerDate Nov 24 2008 11:26 Nov 05, 2009 Jkt 051025 PO 00000 Frm 00030 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 P:\DOCS\51025.TXT SAFFAIRS PsN: PAT
27 

lic policy, whether you are in office or not, our potential as a community will be diminished if we do not have the good friends that 

we have in both of you. 

As the decennial measurement draws closer, some major issues 

face Latinos, and this includes ensuring that Latinos are fairly and 

properly included in the counting—to make the Census forms accessible so that they may be completed by as many residents as 

possible; the influx of illegal immigration in certain areas; finding 

a way to encourage Latinos to register with the Census, independent of the issues regarding immigration and anti-Latino sentiment that some areas like Hazelton, Pennsylvania are undergoing 

today. 

While the Latino population has been long concentrated in the 

south and west, there is a strong possibility that as work becomes 

available, the northeastern States could undergo an influx of 

Latino migration between now and 2010 and 2020. 

Besides having an accurate count of Latinos in the Commonwealth and country, there are several key benefits to a Latino-inclusive Census. Redistricting will include districts that better represent the prevalence of the Latino community. And for us in Pennsylvania, this is so important. We have more than 560,000 Latinos 

in the Commonwealth today. Yet, we only have one Latino in the 

Pennsylvania legislature. These districts are more likely to yield 

public officials that reflect the Latino background and will better 

address the issues facing the community. 

A proper count of Latinos could heavily improve the community’s 

political stature and create a better environment in which Latinos 

can lobby for legislation that pertain to their causes. The rise in 

population, prevalence, and representation will lead to more economic and political development, which can help produce better 

legislation. 

Mr. Chairman, let me tell you, when we improve the living, social, economic, and educational condition of Latinos, we are improving the living, educational, and social and economic conditions of 

all Americans. Twenty-five percent of the Nation’s early childhood 

education population today is Latino in the United States. So if we 

look at that 25 percent, we can say that 25 percent of the Nation’s 

future as of today is going to be Latino. If we miss out counting 

this population, a generation will lose out to enjoy the benefit of 

a fair and accurate count. 

I urge you to prevent the Census from becoming a political tool 

that will impact greatly the Nation’s Latino population. The Census can and will bring Latinos out of the shadows. 

Mr. Chairman, let me conclude by saying that today, Latinos 

know they can make a difference in the direction of our country. 

In cities like Lancaster, Reading, Allentown, Bethlehem, York, 

Harrisburg, Lebanon, Latino students are soon to be, or already 

are, the majority of the student population. An accurate count in 

these areas of the State will help us provide better educational opportunities for these kids and a pathway to their hopes, dreams, 

and aspirations. I strongly believe that an accurate count will level 

the playing field and will bring our community much closer to the 

American dream. 

Mr. Chairman, thank you for you time. 

28 

1The prepared statement of Ms. Coulter appears in the Appendix on page 66. 

Senator CARPER. Mr. Colo ́n, thank you for your testimony. Thank 

you very much. 

Ms. Coulter, you are recognized. And your entire statement will 

be made part of the record. If you wish to summarize it, you may 

do so, Ms. Coulter. 

STATEMENT OF PATRICIA A. COULTER,1 PRESIDENT AND CEO, 

URBAN LEAGUE OF PHILADELPHIA 

Ms. COULTER. Good afternoon. Senator Carper and Congressman 

Castle, thank you very much for having me here today. I am 

pleased to be invited to testify today on Making the Census Count 

in Urban America. For the record, my name is Patricia A. Coulter, 

and I am President and CEO of the Urban League in Philadelphia. 

The National Urban League, with its 100 affiliates nationwide, 

and the U.S. Census Bureau have a history that dates back to 1970 

in the Census project of that year. The mission of the Urban 

League is to empower African Americans to secure economic selfreliance, parity, power, and civil rights. We carry out that mission 

by closing equality gaps in five key areas: Economics, education, 

health, civic engagement, and social justice. 

According to the Urban League of Philadelphia’s recent State of 

Black Philadelphia report, African Americans comprise 44 percent 

of the population in Philadelphia. This report statistically measures these five disparities between blacks and whites in Philadelphia. 

Philadelphia Inquirer journalist, Dick Polman, reported back in 

February 2009 that the Census is a flashpoint. Numbers are power. 

The population count determines who will most benefit from the 

billions in Federal aid and where it will go. It determines which 

States will gain congressional seats and which will lose seats. 

‘‘Both political parties have a huge stake in the Census,’’ says Mr. 

Polman. 

Census data directly affects African Americans in virtually all 

decisions made in education, employment, veterans’ services, public 

health care, transportation, and housing. Using the Census data to 

develop, evaluate and implement programs means that the data is 

used to determine how to divvy up more than $300 billion each 

year. 

These facts underscore the importance of African Americans 

being counted. In fact, Philadelphia has a unique history with regard to counting African Americans for the Census. In 1837, the 

Pennsylvania Abolition Society (PAS) appointed a committee to 

conduct a Census of the entire black population in Philadelphia 

and the surrounding suburbs. The Constitution that existed was 

ambiguous with respect to the right of blacks to vote. To remove 

the ambiguity, Ben Martin, a delegate to the Reform Convention to 

amend the State constitution, proposed that voting rights be limited specifically to whites. 

The PAS actively lobbied to prevent this change to the Constitution, and the African American Census was an important component of these efforts. The Census was intended to demonstrate that 

blacks were valuable contributors to their communities, however, 

29 

despite the efforts of the PAS and other activists, the Constitution, 

which was ratified in October 1838, excluded blacks from the franchise. Well, today, as it was, the Census data is used to prevent 

African Americans from being disenfranchised. 

African Americans have been systematically and disproportionately undercounted by the Census. Urban centers and high poverty 

areas, immigrant and minority communities, are most susceptible 

to miscounts. The 1990 Census included a net undercount of 4 million. Most of those left out were urban, non-white, and generally 

poorer than the mean of those counted. The consequences of the 

undercount could be serious in many urban areas. According to the 

former Philadelphia deputy city planning commissioner, David 

Baldinger, the 1990 undercount cost the city $10 to $15 million annually. 

Federal funding for employment and training is one of the primary policy responses directed at racial inequality in employment. 

The undercount has a major impact on the distribution of Federal 

funds for employment and training. The formula for distributing 

employment and training funds could be significantly distorted by 

the undercount in urban areas that could reduce the funds available for job training in cities like Philadelphia. 

Minorities tend to be undercounted because some are mistrustful 

of and avoid sharing information with the government. Many people, frankly, just do not feel a part of the American system; therefore, we need community organizations to be a bridge, to be a connector to these undercounted communities. 

According to Robert Hill, in the initial planning for the 2010 

Census, he says that the Stimulus Bill stipulates that the Census 

Bureau can spend up to $250 million for its partnership program. 

I heard a person here say $100 million, but the Stimulus Bill can 

spend up to $250 million in partnership programs and outreach efforts to minority communities and hard-to-reach populations. With 

adequate resources, community-based partnerships can reach the 

undercounted through their current services and programs, as well 

as direct outreach to neighborhoods and constituents. 

The Census Bureau will hire 1.4 million temporary workers to 

help collect the data and follow up with households that do not return their forms. Community-based organizations could be partners 

for the Census Bureau to ensure an ethically and racially-diverse 

workforce, from the staff in the district offices to the enumerators 

in the neighborhoods and barrios. 

In conclusion, with this history and with these numbers as a 

backdrop, making the Census count in urban America is critically 

important for African Americans and other minority groups. I 

thank you for this opportunity to share my views on this important 

issue. 

Senator CARPER. You are welcome, and we thank you for sharing 

your views with us today. 

Now, direct from Delaware, the first State, the State that started 

our Nation, ratified that constitution and was first drafted here in 

the City of Brotherly Love, Wanda Lopez. 

30 

1The prepared statement of Ms. Lopez appears in the Appendix on page 69. 

STATEMENT OF WANDA M. LOPEZ,1 EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, 

GOVERNOR’S ADVISORY COUNCIL ON HISPANIC AFFAIRS 

Ms. LOPEZ. It is great to be with so many Delaware representatives here today. 

Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman, and Congressman Castle. I wanted to also acknowledge Mayor Baker and Mayor Nutter for hosting 

us in this city today, and all the other participants here today, especially some of the familiar Census representatives that are becoming familiar faces. I appreciate the opportunity to testify on behalf of the Delaware Governor’s Advisory Council on Hispanic Affairs (GACHA) and share recommendations from council and community members. 

I have a quote written by one of our GACHA members, Margaret 

Reyes, ‘‘We as a Nation has always been and will always remain 

greater than the sum of our parts. But we as a people must know 

the amount and the sum of these parts, who and where we are. In 

this way, we move forward together as a united Nation of many. 

In this way, the founders wisely decided the decennial enumeration 

be done.’’ It is in the spirit and with this in mind that I am here 

before you today. 

Good afternoon. My name is Wanda Lopez, and I have served as 

the Executive Director of GACHA since 2003. The Council has existed for 31 years and our members make recommendations to the 

State as they relate to our five active committees: Education, 

health, social justice, economic development, and historical and cultural affairs. 

For the last 3 years, I have had the opportunity to meet with 

other Hispanic Latino Affairs directors during the U.S. Hispanic 

Leadership Institute Annual Conference at the invitation of Dr. 

Juan Andrade, the USHLI president. We were provided with this 

venue where we were able to share best practices around policy 

and organizational development. And this year we formed the U.S. 

Council on Latino Affairs, and we held an election, and Norman 

Bristol Colo ́n is our chairperson, actually. 

Our latest gathering was in April in Washington. We had an 

education summit and 23 Hispanic State affairs directors attended, 

all making a commitment to work on the Census as our national 

project under the Hazte Contar campaign that Mr. Colo ́n spoke of. 

GACHA began its partnership with the Census Bureau last year, 

and we formally announced that partnership during our Hispanic 

Heritage Month proclamation on September 15, 2008. And former 

Governor Minner was in attendance, along with Fernando Armstrong, regional Census director, who is here with us today. The 

commitment was to raise awareness on the importance of being 

counted, and GACHA became a community complete-count committee member, launching a local campaign that we call Cuenta 

Conmigo, Count on Me. 

The goal is that through our established network of contacts, we 

refer to the Census partnership specialists, various community, and 

faith-based leaders throughout the State. These connections have 

led to Census staff meetings with local emergency service proVerDate Nov 24 2008 11:26 Nov 05, 2009 Jkt 051025 PO 00000 Frm 00034 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 P:\DOCS\51025.TXT SAFFAIRS PsN: PAT
31 

viders, ensuring physical locales are properly verified and pockets 

of communities are properly located. 

Identifying these areas is the critical first step. The next critical 

step is to hire the right people to enumerate their own communities. We feel confident that if partnerships are formed with these 

organizations State-wide, the community will receive the message 

from trusted messengers and participate in the Census. 

By creating the Census storefront sites within existing organizations in each county, and placing Census personnel in service provider locales, community and faith-based sites, this could be very 

effective in capturing the historically undercounted population of 

Hispanics. Relying on volunteers to accomplish this task would be 

a mistake, as too many nonprofits are understaffed and underfunded. 

In order to garner the trust of these sensitive populations, it is 

imperative that test scores alone not be the sole criteria for the selection of the Census workforce in these work areas. We highly recommend that additional criteria, like language ability, cultural sensitivity, knowledge of community, and experience from living and 

working within the hard-to-count areas, be the final determining 

factor for hires. 

The Hispanic population must receive messages from trusted 

sources, like church leaders, service providers, the local Spanish 

media, in order to fully grasp the importance of the Census. We are 

all here today to fully understand that the Census is the sole basis 

for the distribution of political power and the distribution of Federal funds. The general population as a whole, and the Hispanic 

population specifically, needs to understand how that impacts their 

daily lives, why their participation is critical for their future. Those 

messages must come from trusted and familiar sources. 

We all know that agribusiness relies heavily on migrant workers 

and the undocumented workforce population that live in rural 

areas. These are traditionally hard-to-count areas, and, therefore, 

historically undercounted communities. Thus, this presence within 

the corporations where they work and partnerships with service 

providers and their community will be instrumental to count these 

groups. Stepped-up immigration raids and hate crimes focusing on 

immigrant workers has driven this community further underground, making this tumultuous task more challenging. 

The Census Bureau now has the unenviable task of having less 

than 1 year to undo the erosion of trust resulting from immigration 

policies of the previous Administration, focused on workers not employers. This community has difficulty in understanding the difference between the mission of the U.S. Census Bureau and ICE, 

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, two very separate 

branches of government. It is for this reason that the only solution 

to a successful count is to work with people they trust within their 

communities. 

We also hope to see cooperation from other agencies to support 

the Census Bureau in dealing with a sensitive population. The absolute key is working with trusted faces in the community where 

they learn, work, play, and pray. Working with the Department of 

Education to incorporate the Census into the curriculum, not only 

K through 12, but adult ESL, which has already been accomplished 

32 

in Delaware; working with employers to hold Census awareness 

sessions on site; working with service providers to assist with questionnaires; working with soccer league coordinators to carry the 

message on the field; and working with the media and the faithbased leaders to incorporate the message within their programs, 

will ultimately ensure that these folks are captured in their community during the course of their daily lives. 

Although Delaware is a small State, we are capable of producing 

great results, as evidenced recently on the political scene and here 

today. Delaware is capable of being a model State for the Census 

since we are manageable in regards to size and we are open to new 

ideas. GACHA feels confident that Census 2010 can be more successful in capturing the Hispanic undercounted population than in 

prior years if the community partnerships are formed State-wide, 

bilingual/bicultural personnel hired for key positions, and Spanishspeaking Census personnel placed in critical areas. We have seen 

that work. It has already begun in Delaware. 

Mr. Chairman, thank you for allowing me to address the Subcommittee and share Delaware’s GACHA council members’ and 

community leaders’ recommendations for a complete count in Census 2010. 

Senator CARPER. Ms. Lopez, thank you. Nicely done. 

Congressman Castle is going to lead off this round of questions. 

We will maybe do one round for this panel, and then we will call 

it a day. Congressman Castle. 

Mr. CASTLE. Thank you, Senator. 

Mr. Mesenbourg, let me start with you. One of the concerns that 

I have expressed and I have heard often is that people are shy of 

the Census counting because they are concerned about what else 

it may involve. 

Can you tell me what relationship, if any, the Census Bureau 

has or could have with immigration officials or law enforcement officials in this country? 

Mr. MESENBOURG. Any information provided to the Census Bureau will be held confidential. The only individuals that will ever 

see the information provided by a respondent will be Census Bureau employees. So data will not be shared with INS, it will not 

be shared with IRS, it will not be shared with anyone except Census Bureau employees. 

Mr. CASTLE. I do not mean to counsel you, but I think that is 

a very important message to get out. I think that relieves a lot of 

the problems we are all concerned about. If people truly understood 

and believed that, I think we would see the counts go up among 

certain people or population who are concerned about those kinds 

of issues. 

Mr. MESENBOURG. This is going to be a key message in our paid 

advertising campaign. We tested the preliminary ads and 78 focus 

groups, with 1,400 people, and most of the groups, especially the 

Hispanic group, has advised us even to strengthen the message on 

confidentiality. We intend to do that. 

Mr. CASTLE. My second question, let me preface it with a story. 

I guess it was last Tuesday night or so, down in the Capitol, I was 

asked—because I was a sponsor of a youth bill—to do an introduction in a new movie, which is a documentary coming out, the 

33 

Bloods and the Crips, about the gangs in Los Angeles. And the producer was there, and Baron Davis, the basketball player, was 

there. And the producer’s wife is Jessica Alba, who is a movie star. 

I must admit, I have not seen her a lot, but she is a movie star. 

We were walking over from the Capitol, into the Capitol Visitors 

Center, and I just happened to at that point be walking sort of 

alongside of her. There was a railing and stairs, and we were on 

either side of that railing walking down. And, I walk around the 

Capitol all the time. I mean, I am one of 435 people; people could 

care less. But anyway, down at the bottom of the stairs there are 

probably about a hundred photographers taking pictures. So we get 

down to the bottom, and I turned to her. I said, ‘‘Jessica, I apologize for causing you so much inconvenience with all these pictures.’’ 

I do not know if she heard me or not. She sort of laughed and went 

on. 

The reason I raise that is, it is clear there are celebrities out 

there of which members of Congress—maybe senators, but members of the House are not. 

And I just wonder how much help they could be in terms of doing 

public service type announcements, and maybe talk about some of 

the things we have talked about here today, or the fact that nobody 

else is going to learn about this or whatever. 

I mean, Oprah Winfrey, people like that, doing public service announcements would be, I would think, a tremendous value in all 

of our communities, finding people who would be able to help in the 

communities. 

Is that something that is being pursued? 

Mr. MESENBOURG. That is, Congressman, something that we are 

pursuing. Actually, we vetted the preliminary advertising with our 

new Secretary of Commerce, Secretary Locke, about 2 weeks ago. 

And one of his advisors was a senior advisor to then Senator 

Obama during the campaign. And he encouraged us to really involve some of the celebrities, especially celebrities that are viewed 

as trusted voices within their local community. 

So as part of our communication contract, we have a public relations aspect to that, and we have that firm actually crafting some 

of those messages. And some of the advice that we have is maybe 

we need to be a bit more cutting edge on some of the advertising 

to hit some of these traditionally hard-to-count parts of the population, and we are exploring that. 

Mr. CASTLE. Let me just ask the other panelists, does that make 

sense to you, if they had public service announcements with people 

of some notoriety in whatever community you are trying to deal 

with in terms of getting people to get involved with the Census 

count? 

Ms. COULTER. I do think it makes sense. The only thing I would 

suggest, though, is that there be a sensitivity to making sure that 

you are reaching all the groups. So, for example, in the African 

American community, African American media, African American 

PR firms. When you talk about celebrities, for example, in the African American community, the person that comes to my mind—we 

were just talking about Oprah. But in addition to Oprah, there is 

Tom Joyner, who reaches millions of African Americans everyday 

on the radio, and he is very trusted. 

34 

So I think when you think through that strategy, just make sure 

it is very inclusive. 

Mr. CASTLE. Is that true in the Latino communities as well? 

Ms. LOPEZ. Yes. I would reiterate that the same would apply in 

the Hispanic community, very popular, soap operas in Spanish. 

Novellas are very popular, so the stars obviously are very much 

sought out. 

But from a local perspective, I think local radio, especially in 

Delaware, is considered an important source. So at the same time 

that the Telemundo and Univision are using these wonderful celebrities to carry the message, then they have to also hear it from 

local community leaders and media and newspaper and radio, and 

I think that would be powerful. Because the message for our community, the most concern we have has to do with a community that 

is fearing this process and needs to understand how these two entities are separate and that this data is safe. 

Mr. CASTLE. Well, let me thank you all. You have been a very 

good panel. It is has been very informational and helpful. And, 

hopefully, working together, we can overcome some of the problems 

that have existed in the past. And let me thank Senator Carper for 

the opportunity of participating today, and turn it over to him. 

Senator CARPER. Well, I am just delighted that you have joined 

us, Congressman. Just think about it, two-thirds of the entire Delaware delegation in Congress is on this stage at this moment. But 

we are honored that each of you are here. 

I am just reminded in terms of putting together and crafting a 

message to encourage folks to step forward to be counted, in terms 

of being able to craft the message to encourage those folks who 

might otherwise duck this opportunity to not duck it. 

White Anglo-Saxon Protestant Catholics like the congressman 

and myself, we are not the most effective messengers. We are not 

the best ones to put together the marketing plan. We are not the 

best ones to do the media, but there are a lot of folks who are, and 

you have mentioned some of them who are. 

I think someone earlier mentioned that the President might play 

a valuable role. I would say the First Lady might be a terrific asset 

there as well. I do not know if their children might be called upon 

to play a role, but there are a lot of children in homes that are not 

going to be counted. So this could be a whole family participation 

project. But we need to be creative. We need to think outside the 

box. And my sense is that what we are doing here. 

First question that I have is for Mr. Mesenbourg. I want to go 

back to talk about something we had a chance to get into before. 

As you know, in April, the Census Bureau began a massive operation to verify and update more than 145 million addresses nationwide—the hand-held computers, I think their cost is about $800 

million for the hand-held. That is what I am told. But the address 

canvassing operation has a projected cost estimate of about $370 

million. In Delaware, approximately 500 temporary employees were 

hired to carry out the operation, I believe. 

For the first time, workers are using hand-held computers to update the Census Bureau’s address database. And, as you know, last 

year, there were major problems with the hand-held, which led to 

a major redesign of the Census late into the process. 

35 

Would you just talk for a minute or so about the improvements 

that have been made to the overall functionality of the hand-held 

computers? Since the dress rehearsal, are they performing as expected during the address canvassing operation? 

I believe you suggested a few minutes ago that, indeed, they are 

and that you are encouraged. But take another minute and just 

talk about that. 

Mr. MESENBOURG. Certainly, Senator. 

As you know, we faced some significant challenges last year that 

we experienced with the hand-held computers in the dress rehearsal that was in both Stockton and Fayetteville, North Carolina. 

Faced with some of those problems, we actually took a hard look 

at our data collection activities for 2010, and we decided to focus 

and use the hand-held computers only for the address canvassing 

operation. 

The original plan was to use those for non-response follow-up in 

May 2010. That is when that operation starts. We thought that 

was far too risky an undertaking to do that, so we put all of our 

resources on making sure that the hand-helds would perform in the 

address canvassing operation. 

Senator CARPER. Not everybody following this hearing knows 

what we mean by address canvassing. 

Why don’t you just take a moment and explain to the laypeople 

what that means? 

Mr. MESENBOURG. The address canvassing operation, we hired 

140,000 Census Bureau employees to walk every block in the 

United States and actually check the address, validate the address. 

And they have a GPS capability on the address canvassing that 

permits us to accurately locate the housing unit in the block. And 

that becomes important, of course, if we have to go back and do 

non-response follow-up and when we are going to tabulate the data. 

So the objective of address canvassing is to make sure we have 

every address on the address list. We heard some discussion earlier 

in the day about the local update process. Philadelphia provided us 

with 56,000 addresses, and across the Nation, we got 8 million additional addresses from State and local governments. 

So when we approached address canvassing this spring, we found 

that the workload had increased. We had the 8 million additional 

addresses that had come from the State and local communities. We 

had tested the hand-helds in a small scale test in December in Fayetteville, North Carolina, but there were still some concerns on how 

they would perform. So we introduced a series of risk mitigation 

strategies. And while originally we planned to do address canvassing in two waves, we decided to do it in five waves to reduce 

the risk. So we actually ended up starting about 10 days early in 

eight of the local Census offices. 

We also then benefited from the downturn in the economy. In the 

dress rehearsal in 2007, our experience was if we hired somebody, 

about 25 percent of them would not show up for the training, so 

we would make an offer. Well, our experience in this economy, of 

course, is much different, and only 12 percent did not show up. We 

also had much higher probability that people might decide address 

canvassing was not their cup of tea 6 months or a year ago, and 

now we are getting very few people that are willingly giving up 

36 

their jobs. So they are working longer hours and they are not separating. That really explains why we are so far ahead of our address 

canvassing operation. 

But to answer your question, the hand-helds have performed 

very well. And with a very highly-skilled workforce working longer 

hours, we are finishing the operation much earlier than we originally planned. 

Senator CARPER. Thank you for that. 

Let me just segue, kind of stay on that point. But I am told that 

the address canvassing operation was initially expected to last I 

think through mid July. But in certain areas of Philadelphia, and 

I think even Delaware, I am told that Census workers were let go 

after working only a few weeks. And last week, I think the Commerce inspector general issued a report, indicating that workers 

were not following basic procedures and taking short cuts. 

Let me just ask, what is the impact of these inconsistencies on 

the quality of the address lists that we are compiling? And then 

subsequent to operations, what steps has the Census Bureau taken 

to address the concerns that have been raised by the inspector general from Commerce? 

Mr. MESENBOURG. The inspector general sent two individuals 

from their office to 15 of our local Census offices. We actually have 

150 local Census offices established across the United States to 

support the address canvassing. They basically followed the address canvassers around, a small sample of them. And they noted 

in six of the sites that some of the address canvassers were not following the procedures. 

Two procedures that were noted, they were not knocking on the 

door. This was in our procedure, and we did that for two reasons. 

First of all, to get a good map spot from the GPS, you have to be 

relatively close to the residence. And since strangers may be showing up on your front step holding a strange device, we thought it 

was wise to announce our presence. 

The other reason to knock on the door, though, is to ask the 

homeowner if they are home—of course, we canvass night and into 

the evening, and sometimes people will not be home. If there is an 

unusual housing arrangement—perhaps they are renting out the 

top floor, perhaps there appears to be a building in the back or 

there may be two rows of doorbells on the door. And the earlier 

panel had talked about some of the challenges in the economic 

downturn. That is one of the objectives in address canvassing, is 

to note that there may be multiple housing units in what we would 

think would be a single unit. 

The second concern, some of the rural roads, the address canvasser is to go down every twisty road, even if it is a dirt road. And 

they noted a couple cases where the canvasser did not do that. 

What we did, as soon as we got that report, we sent out a blanket 

announcement to all 140,000 canvassers that actually shows up on 

their hand-held computer, to reconfirm that you need to follow procedure, you need to knock on the door, and you need to go down 

every road in the rural area. 

We do not think this was a systematic problem, but we were concerned that some canvassers were not following procedures. Perhaps not a surprise when you have 140,000 people in the field, that 

37 

not everyone follows direction. But as soon as the IG made us 

aware of that information, we put out a blanket message to the 

listers, and we followed up with a telephone call with all the regional directors the day after. 

Senator CARPER. All right. Thank you. 

We talked a fair amount about overcount and undercount. We 

have a situation where, ironically, folks that are most often undercounted are those that live in the most dire economic situations, 

and those that are overcounted are those who tend to be more affluent, college-age students who go to schools out of State, folks 

who have second homes, vacation homes, and not uncommon for 

them to be overcounted. Not a good situation and one that we certainly tried to address in 2000 and we are seeking to address in 

2010 even more. 

Let me just ask each of you, are you satisfied thus far with the 

steps that the Census Bureau has taken to address some of the 

problems in the count that showed up in 2000, where we had about 

6 million people who were undercounted, were not counted, and 

about 3 million who were counted at least twice? 

Ms. Lopez, would you like to go first? 

And again, the question is, how do you feel about the steps that 

the Census Bureau is taking to address the problems that we faced 

in 2000? 

Ms. LOPEZ. Well, thus far, all the recommendations that we have 

made regarding potential partners for the Census—I know that in 

Delaware, the office has gone forth and spoken to these folks all 

over the State. What partnerships came out of that, I am not sure 

of all the details, but some of them are event sponsorships and 

some of them are much more involved and using space for testing, 

and using space for, hopefully, in the future, as a questionnaire assistance center. 

So I feel that in Delaware, we are having a positive experience 

moving forward if all these partnerships are critically placed 

throughout the State. And the concern that Director Mesenbourg 

brought up, I have heard before, that they have a good problem 

and they have a very good workforce because of the economy. The 

concern there, and I want to reiterate, was that when you are looking at the hard-to-count areas, these folks may not be scoring very 

high on their tests. But what they have to bring to the table is access to a community that is not going to open the door to an unknown face. 

So my concern is that if they are given the flexibility to hire the 

best candidate for the hard-to-count areas, and they are able, given 

the flexibility, to have the partnerships customized based on the 

community, if they need to set up a store front in a community center that has a high population of Hispanics, especially in Wilmington, they should do so. I do feel confident that they are going 

to have much greater success in 2010 in capturing this community. 

Senator CARPER. Thank you, Ms. Lopez. Ms. Coulter. 

Ms. COULTER. I listened with intent regarding some of the things 

that are being done, and it is quite a management undertaking 

with thousands and thousands of people out there doing these 

types of tasks. But I do think that—I will underscore, actually, Ms. 

Lopez’s statements around partnering. I think that the key to this 

38 

is really getting into community-based organizations who are trusted in these communities. 

Many of us have been around for years, the Urban League for 

nearly a hundred years. And if nothing else, if you walk into most 

African American communities in this city and other cities across 

the country, they will have heard of the organization. And it kind 

of gives you a step in right away because they know that while I 

may not know exactly what it is all about, but I know I have heard 

of it. So really hiring people who are trusted folks that can walk 

into these communities I think is critically important. 

Locally, we have also worked with our local office, the Census 

Bureau, in initially helping them reach out to racially-diverse folks 

to hire. And I know that more than 50 folks have been hired by 

them. And we would like to do more of that. I think the concern, 

though, for us is that as a nonprofit, community-based organization, resources are critical to us. But I think that we have proven 

ourselves by doing some things just because we want to be a partner, but then there are probably deeper and more complex things 

that we could do together if we had resources to do them. 

Senator CARPER. Thank you. Mr. Colo ́n. 

Mr. COLO ́ N. I am confident that this 2010 Census is going to be 

the most successful Census ever in the history of the United States. 

However, that does not mean that we do not have some concerns 

in the counting of all Latinos, especially as the ones that I mentioned before. The migrant and seasonal farmworker community, 

more than 80 percent of that population is Latino. That creates a 

lot of challenges for us to make sure that we are counting the migrant and seasonal farmworker community. In addition to that, the 

immigrant community that is of Latino descent. That should be a 

top priority for us, if we are going to make sure that every Latino 

is counted in the Nation. 

And I would also like to mention that, Senator and the congressman, if you can assist some of us really delivering the message to 

our local and State leaders on the importance of the U.S. Census. 

What I mean with this is engaging the National Governors Association to make sure that they are really engaged in this process the 

way that we are engaging ourselves, especially I am talking on behalf of the U.S. Council on Latino Affairs. If our governors are 

there with us, I think it would be a lot more successful for us to 

make sure we are counting every single resident in those respective 

States. 

Senator CARPER. Thank you. 

I have no more questions of this panel. I am going to ask Congressman Castle if he would like to make a closing statement. I 

will make a closing statement, and then we will call it a day. 

Thanks. 

Mr. CASTLE. Thank you, Senator. I have a 40-minute closing 

statement I would like to give now, if everybody is ready for that 

out here in the audience. [Laughter.] 

No, I am pleased to have had the opportunity to be here, and I 

do thank Senator Carper for that. I believe this is a very important 

subject, and I am very pleased with this panel and the first panel. 

I think your suggestions were good. I think we all need to pay attention to these suggestions. Obviously, saying these things is one 

39 

thing; carrying them out and doing them properly is something 

else. 

Again, that is the responsibility of those of us who are elected officials and those who are working in the Census. But I believe that 

there seems to be a greater focus on this particular 10-year cycle 

than normal. And I think we have an opportunity to really make 

sure we get our count numbers up, and I think your testimony 

today has proven that. And for that, we are all very thankful. So 

thank you. 

Senator CARPER. And let me just say thank you so much for joining us today on this important occasion. 

A former President of the United States—it might have actually 

been Richard Nixon. Not many people quote Richard Nixon these 

days, but I am going to quote him today. And he used to say that 

‘‘the only people that do not make mistakes are the people that do 

not do anything.’’ And all of us will make mistakes in our lives. I 

say to my sons, who are now in college, that there is nothing wrong 

with making mistakes. The key is to learn from those mistakes. 

We have been conducting a Census every 10 years for over 200 

years, and along the way, we have made a lot of mistakes. We continued to make those mistakes in 2000 and the intervening years 

up until now. But I am actually encouraged. We had some enormous concerns. My staff and I did, and other members of the Senate and the House had enormous concerns as we were approaching 

the 2010 Census, and found out how little we were planning to use 

technology to increase the number of people that we are counting 

to reduce the number of errors; and enormous concern about the 

hand-held computers and doing the address canvassing and whether or not the technology would work, would enable us to be more 

accurate and to be more efficient in the work that we are doing. 

I am encouraged to hear that after a little bit of a late start, it 

looks like we are picking up speed, and the result that we are seeing thus far is actually encouraging. 

The concerns raised by the Inspector General of the Commerce 

Department, we had an opportunity for Mr. Mesenbourg to respond 

to those, and I am encouraged that he jumped right on it. And he 

used the technology, the hand-helds, to send out messages ASAP, 

to folks who were walking around with those hand-helds to make 

sure that we addressed those concerns that had been raised by the 

Inspector General. 

The Census, as we all have heard here today, is enormously important, as important maybe as any time in our Nation’s history. 

As States, cities, counties of all sizes and shapes wrestle with the 

financial difficulties, in some cases catastrophes, that they face, 

they each have a special vested interest in making sure that we get 

this count right. Whether the amount of money for an undercount 

for every person is a $100 or $2,000, a lot of money is at stake 

here. A lot of this money at stake is cities, counties and States 

apply for Federal grants. A good deal is at stake in terms of how 

we elect our U.S. representatives, how we apportion our districts, 

how many U.S. representatives a commonwealth like Pennsylvania 

will have, and also to determine how we are going to elect and apportion the districts—create the districts for our local officials and, 

in some cases literally for officials on our city governments. There 

40 

is a great deal at stake, and it is important that we, to the best 

of our ability, get this right, to the extent we find that we are making mistakes, to correct them in the stream, in mid-air, and then 

to have some lessons learned for the next time. 

I do not know that the congressman and I will be back 10 years 

from now to do a lessons learned, sort of retrospective. We might; 

you never know. But I am very grateful that each of you were able 

to set time aside in your day and those who joined us. I want to 

say a special thanks to our staff who worked for weeks to put this 

hearing together. 

A friend of mine, Lamar Alexander, a former governor, now 

serves in the U.S. Senate, he likes to talk about hearings as 

talkings. He says they are really misnamed. They should not be 

called hearings; they should be called talkings because all the senators do, they come to these hearings and talk. And I just want the 

record to show that Congressman Castle and I listen a fair amount. 

We talk some, but we listen a whole lot. And you gave us a whole 

lot to chew on and to take home with us, and to take us back to 

our respective responsibilities. 

So with that having been said, special thanks to everyone here 

at the center for hosting us today and for all of our witnesses who 

have been a part of this presentation. Thank you all. And with 

that, this hearing—not this listening. This hearing is adjourned. 

Thank you. 

[Whereupon, at 3:15 p.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.] 

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