U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE

57–800 CC WASHINGTON : 1999

OVERSIGHT OF THE 2000 CENSUS: COMMUNITY

BASED APPROACHES FOR A BETTER

ENUMERATION

HEARING

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON

GOVERNMENT REFORM

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED SIXTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

JANUARY 29, 1999

Serial No. 106–21

Printed for the use of the Committee on Government Reform

(

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

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COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM

DAN BURTON, Indiana, Chairman

BENJAMIN A. GILMAN, New York

CONSTANCE A. MORELLA, Maryland

CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut

ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida

JOHN M. MCHUGH, New York

STEPHEN HORN, California

JOHN L. MICA, Florida

THOMAS M. DAVIS, Virginia

DAVID M. MCINTOSH, Indiana

MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana

JOE SCARBOROUGH, Florida

STEVEN C. LATOURETTE, Ohio

MARSHALL ‘‘MARK’’ SANFORD, South

Carolina

BOB BARR, Georgia

DAN MILLER, Florida

ASA HUTCHINSON, Arkansas

LEE TERRY, Nebraska

JUDY BIGGERT, Illinois

GREG WALDEN, Oregon

DOUG OSE, California

PAUL RYAN, Wisconsin

——— ———

——— ———

HENRY A. WAXMAN, California

TOM LANTOS, California

ROBERT E. WISE, JR., West Virginia

MAJOR R. OWENS, New York

EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York

PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania

GARY A. CONDIT, California

PATSY T. MINK, Hawaii

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, Washington,

DC

CHAKA FATTAH, Pennsylvania

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland

DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio

ROD R. BLAGOJEVICH, Illinois

DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois

JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts

JIM TURNER, Texas

THOMAS H. ALLEN, Maine

HAROLD E. FORD, JR., Tennessee

———

BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont

(Independent)

KEVIN BINGER, Staff Director

DANIEL R. MOLL, Deputy Staff Director

DAVID A. KASS, Deputy Counsel and Parliamentarian

CARLA J. MARTIN, Chief Clerk

PHIL SCHILIRO, Minority Staff Director

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C O N T E N T S

Page

Hearing held on January 29, 1999 ......................................................................... 1

Statement of:

Bourey, James M., executive director, Maricopa Association of Governments ............................................................................................................. 124

Celley, Scott, executive assistant to Governor Jane Hull ............................. 91

Gaddy, Levonne, founding president of Multiethnics of Southern Arizona

in Celebration [MOSAIC] ............................................................................. 131

Jackson, Jack C., Jr., director of governmental affairs, National Congress

of American Indians ...................................................................................... 103

Lewis, John, executive director, Intertribal Council of Arizona ................... 93

Lewis, Rodney B., general counsel, Gila River Indian Community ............. 72

Lumm, Esther Duran, president of the Arizona Hispanic Community

Forum ............................................................................................................. 135

Makil, Ivan, president of the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community ................................................................................................................. 53

McKenzie, Dr. Taylor, vice-president of the Navajo Nation, Arizona .......... 42

Taylor, Wayne, chairman of the Hopi Tribe ................................................... 63

Thomas, Mary, Governor, Gila River Indian Community ............................. 73

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

Bourey, James M., executive director, Maricopa Association of Governments, prepared statement of ...................................................................... 127

Gaddy, Levonne, founding president of Multiethnics of Southern Arizona

in Celebration [MOSAIC], prepared statement of ...................................... 133

Hayworth, Hon. J.D., a Representative in Congress from the State of

Arizona:

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 37

Various articles .......................................................................................... 28

Jackson, Jack C., Jr., director of governmental affairs, National Congress

of American Indians, prepared statement of .............................................. 106

Lewis, John, executive director, Intertribal Council of Arizona, prepared

statement of ................................................................................................... 96

Lewis, Rodney B., general counsel, Gila River Indian Community, prepared statement of ........................................................................................ 75

Lumm, Esther Duran, president of the Arizona Hispanic Community

Forum, prepared statement of ..................................................................... 137

Makil, Ivan, president of the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community, prepared statement of .......................................................................... 55

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

of New York, prepared statement of ........................................................... 16

McKenzie, Dr. Taylor, vice-president of the Navajo Nation, Arizona, prepared statement of ........................................................................................ 44

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

prepared statement of ................................................................................... 4

Taylor, Wayne, chairman of the Hopi Tribe, prepared statement of ........... 65

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OVERSIGHT OF THE 2000 CENSUS:

COMMUNITY BASED APPROACHES FOR A

BETTER ENUMERATION

FRIDAY, JANUARY 29, 1999

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM,

Phoenix, AZ.

The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 2 p.m., in the Phoenix

City Council Chambers, 200 West Jefferson Street, Phoenix, AZ,

Hon. Dan Miller (chairman of the Subcommittee on the Census)

presiding.

Present: Representatives Miller, Shadegg, and Maloney.

Also present: Representative Hayworth.

Staff present: Chip Walker, communications director; Lara

Chamberlain and Kelly Duquin, professional staff members.

Mr. MILLER. I’ll call the meeting to order and welcome everybody

to the meeting of the Subcommittee on the Census of the Government Reform Committee of the U.S. Congress. Welcome to all of

you here.

I’m delighted to have the ranking member, Carolyn Maloney,

from New York with us.

We’re also pleased to have—they’re not members of the committee; they’re members of the Ways and Means Committee—Congressman Hayworth here with us today, and it was his office that

made it possible to set up this meeting, especially to focus on the

census issues concerning the American Indian population.

So we thank you very much. Your staff was very helpful. We appreciate that. It takes a lot of work to have a field hearing when

you’re in Washington to orchestrate and organize it here, and your

office has been very helpful.

We will have some opening statements by the three of us.

It’s possible Congressman Shadegg will be joining us. He was a

member of this committee. He has now left this committee, but

hopefully, he’ll be joining us for part of this particular meeting.

Earlier this week, the Supreme Court ruled that sampling cannot

be used for the apportionment of the House of Representatives. The

issue of sampling was one that the Congress and the administration agreed would have to be settled by the courts. Well, the high

court has ruled, and now it’s time to go ahead and get to the business of counting people for the 2000 census.

As I see it, the choice with Congress is clear. We can dwell on

the past, or we can work together and come up with a comprehensive plan to count America. My choice and the choice of the SpeakVerDate 11-MAY-2000 09:42 Sep 27, 2000 Jkt 057800 PO 00000 Frm 00005 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 E:\HEARINGS\57800 pfrm03 PsN: 57800
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er and the Republicans is to work together with the Democrats to

count all people in America.

I want to make it perfectly clear that Republicans are prepared

to move on and develop effective strategies to count America. We

welcome the input of the Democrats and the President. In fact, I

fully expect the President will come forward with a good proposal

to legally count America. I’m looking forward to those proposals.

Two days ago, I outlined a plan to count America. The ‘‘America

Counts Today’’ outline is focused on increasing the resources, in

many cases, the money, that the Census Bureau has of specific programs to count the hard to reach.

I outlined four major community bases for improvements to the

2000 census: To correct community awareness, to increase the involvement of the community leaders, to reinforce community based

enumerations, and No. 4 was to strengthen the Census Bureau’s

commitment to the community-based enumeration.

First of all, to increase the involvement with the community

leaders, my top priority there is to reinstate the post census local

review. Nobody knows better than the mayors and the local officials, such as tribal leaders, where people in your community or

reservation live.

Post census local review will give you the opportunity to review

the census numbers before the Census Bureau makes them final.

This program was used in 1990 and added over 80,000 households

but was discontinued in the 2000 census because the Bureau felt

it was too costly. The cost cannot be an impediment to a successful

census. You have the right to check the numbers, and that can do

nothing but help improve the count.

At the same time, I propose establishing matching grant programs to local partnership groups and communities in the hardest

to count areas. This will provide needed resources to conduct outreach efforts and to encourage participation in the census in the respective neighborhoods.

Community awareness is critical and I am proposing to quadruple the advertising budget from $100 million to $400 million,

with a significant portion of the new money targeted toward the

hardest to count areas of the Nation, which would include the

American Indian reservations.

I also want to expand the Census in the Schools program. This

program is designed to raise awareness among our children about

the importance of being counted. It’s unfortunate to say there’s

only enough money for 10 percent of the schools. I propose expanding that to cover all the schools in America.

Additionally, we can and we must triple the number of paid Census Bureau partnership specialists and, again, target them to work

in the areas with the worst undercount.

The third major initiative involves reinforcement of communitybased enumeration. I propose that we add a minimum of 100,000

additional census enumerators, and we target them to work in the

hardest to count communities.

By organizing these enumerators into a unique team and focusing their efforts exclusively on reaching the hardest to count populations, we’ll have a far more accurate count in those areas.

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I also propose to enlist Americorp volunteers in the census effort.

When a Republican proposes to expand the Americorp program,

you know something is different. If we are going to have

Americorp, I can think of no better civic service than helping count

America, and why not use this program to reduce the undercount.

Next, I want to join with Congresswoman Carrie Meek to provide

waivers to Welfare recipients and retired military officers and any

others that are necessary who would like to help count their neighborhoods but can’t because of the bureaucratic red tap that would

cause them to lose their benefits if they take a temporary census

job.

At a recent meeting of the Census Advisory Committee, the

American Indian representatives lamented that a program on Indian reservations called TANF, or Temporary Assistance for Needy

Families, was preventing many American Indians from taking temporary jobs working as census enumerators. We must remove these

barriers for a full count in 2000.

The fourth issue is to strengthen the Bureau’s community-based

enumerations. I propose, instead, of having a second questionnaire

mailed to households. In the 1998 dress rehearsals, this was shown

to increase the response rate by 7 percent. This would mean that

up to 19 million people could be added to the census rolls before

we send the enumerators into the field.

When I first talked about these programs the other day, the

ranking member, Congresswoman Maloney, was very quick to dismiss some of these proposals. Let me say this about the America

Counts Initiative. For starters, the plan is legal. The plan that has

been proposed by the Clinton administration is not legal.

Some of these programs have been tried before, and some have

never been tried before. For example, we’ve never had paid advertising. We’ve never had it in the past, and I’m proposing to increase

it to $400 million.

Is there anyone telling me today that allowing American Indians

to work for the Census Bureau to help count their people without

losing there benefits is a bad idea and won’t help?

Is there anyone who, today, would say, in the local government

or the American Indian Reservations, they don’t want to have a

chance to look at the numbers before the final count to see if there

were mistakes made in the census? We think those are things that

could help. And having the schools involved is something that I

think benefits the census.

So we have a plan. By working together with the Democrats and

the Republicans, having input with people that are here and

throughout the country, we think we can do a much better job in

completing the census.

I presented the programs for counting America, and I had very

positive support, especially on the issue of local census review after

the census is completed. So we are going to conduct a legal census,

the most accurate census in our history, and we look forward to the

input from all the people here today.

At this time, I would like to ask Congresswoman Maloney for an

opening statement.

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

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Mrs. MALONEY. Thank you.

First of all, I’d like to thank my colleagues, particularly J.D., for

hosting us here today. We spent a wonderful morning touring Indian reservations. And actually, I thank you, Dan, for bringing us

here to the field.

Any time we speak out on the census and we go to communities

and make them more aware, we are improving our count locally.

And I want to thank all witnesses that will be here.

The State of Arizona, the city and communities of Phoenix, and

the American Indian tribes in this area were all undercounted in

1990 at an unacceptably high rate. I am committed to changing

this in the 2000 census and will listen with great interest to any

ideas that the Indian tribes and other governmental officials will

have today and the multiracial representative bloodline.

The 1990 census was full of mistakes, and many of those mistakes were in the Southwest. New Mexico had an undercount of 3.1

percent, the highest undercount for any of the 50 States. Arizona

had an undercount of 2.4 percent, which is 50 percent above the

national average.

American Indians on reservations had an undercount of 12.2 percent, the highest group in the country in the undercount. That

means that 1 out of every 8 American Indians living on the reservation was missed. The census also missed 1 out of every 20 Hispanics. The undercount of American Indians not on reservations

was 2.5 percent.

And when you’re undercounted, your dollars—your Federal dollars are less coming in because our dollars are tied to census numbers, our Federal formulas, and the representation, the people

elected. Districts are drawn based on census numbers.

So it’s very, very important, not to mention good data, good scientific data to plan for the future where our health facilities need

to be or other facilities.

The 1990 census was the most examined census in the history

of our country. Both Congress and the Census Bureau were displeased with the results of the census. The total error rate was

over 10 percent.

Twenty-six million people were miscounted. There were 8.4 million people missed; 4.4 million people were counted twice; and 13

million people were counted in the wrong place.

To make matters worse, the people missed and the people counted twice are quite different. The people missed in the census are

minorities: American Indians, Latinos and Asians, as well as urban

and rural poor. The people counted twice in the census tended to

be affluent suburbanites.

I agree with the President who said in the State of the Union Address, ‘‘Since every person in America counts, every American

ought to be counted.’’ That won’t happen without the use of modern, scientific methods. That is what we learned in the 1990 census.

I would like to turn, very briefly, to the unique problems of

counting American Indians in the census. The relationship between

American Indians and the Federal Government is a complicated

one. Tribal government represents sovereign entities, and as such,

have a special relationship.

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In 1992, tribes in the Northeast barred census takers from their

reservation. It was, as they argued, their right as a sovereign nation, their right not to be counted.

Another complicated relationship exists between tribal rolls and

the census. The census is to count people based on their usual residence on April 1. The tribal rolls, on the other hand, are more concerned with identifying membership in the tribe than with the residents on a particular day.

I am pleased that the Census Bureau has done a great deal of

work and improved its procedures on Indian reservations since

1990. The Bureau is committed to the recruitment and hiring of

tribal members to count members of their tribe.

The Census Bureau is committed to working with the American

Indian nations to make sure that every operation of the census is

sensitive to the needs and the culture of those nations. This will

include the cultural sensitive advertising materials as well as

school program materials.

It is my understanding that hiring American Indians on reservations for temporary census work has been hampered by laws governing temporary relief payments. That is unfortunate and unnecessary.

I am pleased that Representative Miller has stated today his endorsement of a bill proposed by my good friend Terry Meek, a

Democratic Representative from Florida. I have supported that bill

for two Congresses now, but we have been unable to get the Republican majority in the House to move the bill.

If the House had acted on this bill last year, we would not be

having trouble on reservations today. So with all due respect, I appeal to my colleague not to just support this bill but to pass it in

the U.S. Congress.

I see that my time is up, and I have a great deal more to say,

but let me just put into the record, and I ask unanimous consent,

editorials from the Washington Post, the LA Times, and the New

York Times.

And these editorials really lament the Supreme Court decision,

which was very narrowly drawn. It barred sampling for apportionment, the drawing—the apportionment of seats between the

States—but allowed it for Federal funds for good data and for redistricting.

Also I would like to put into the record a letter from the civil

rights community. It is a cross section, just to mention a few, of

the National Congress of American Indians, League of Women Voters, Korean Cultural Center, Jewish Committee, Asian Chamber of

Commerce, the AFL–CIO, Chicanos, Latinos, Civil Rights Liberties,

and many, many others who have really signed a letter in support

of modern scientific methods.

And I will only quote briefly from their letter one line: Direct

counting methods alone do not have the capacity to improve accuracy or reduce the differential undercount of children, people of

color, American Indians living on and off reservations, and the

urban and rural poor.

And I also would like to just clarify because my dear, good friend

Representative Miller, I believe, has misquoted the Supreme Court.

And may I quote from Sandra Day O’Connor the majority opinion.

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We do not mean to suggest, as Justice Stevens claimed, a dissent that the 1976

amendments had no purpose, rather the amendments served a very important purpose. It changed the provision that permitted the use of sampling for purposes other

than apportionment into one that required that sampling be used for such purposes

if feasible. And I think that statement is very clear.

I do know that the chairman has been very generous to bring us

out here to be with you. I have a great deal more to say, but my

time is up, and we need to very strictly adhere to that, because we

have many important speakers. Thank you.

May these be accepted in the record?

[The prepared statement of Hon. Carolyn B. Maloney and the information referred to follow:]

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Mr. MILLER. Without objection those will be included in the

record. And for those that have additional materials to include in

the record with their presentation, we will include that with the

record.

Thank you, Mrs. Maloney, for your statement.

And as I said, Congressman Hayworth, who represents this area

of Arizona, was very gracious to host us this morning and make it

possible. He’s not a member of the committee, and we have agreed

that it’s proper to have both Mr. Shadegg and Mr. Hayworth.

So Mr. Hayworth, we’d like to hear from you.

Mr. HAYWORTH. Chairman Miller, Ranking Member Maloney,

Congressman Shadegg, tribal leaders, representatives, distinguished witnesses, and guests, thank you for the opportunity to

participate in what I believe is a very important subject: The severe undercount of the Native Americans in the census.

I welcome this opportunity to hear from so many leaders across

the width and breadth of the great State of Arizona.

And while it is not my intent to score debating points, for purposes of making the record more complete, Mr. Chairman, I would

ask unanimous consent that we include in the record the following

editorials: the Daily Oklahoma, the Orange County Register, the

Florida Times Union of Jacksonville, the New York Post, and the

Post and Courier of Charleston of South Carolina dealing with

plots for a Supreme Court decision and the champions of our Constitution.

As I said when it was my privilege in the 106th Congress to——

Mr. MILLER. Without objection, they will be accepted.

[The information referred to follows:]

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Mr. HAYWORTH. I thank the chairman for that.

When I had the privilege to stand for the sovereignty of Indian

tribes and I pointed out to the assembled audience and my fellow

committee members that sovereignty is guaranteed for Native

Americans by Article I, Section VIII of the Constitution, so too, ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Chairman, when I refer us all to Article

I, Section II of this Constitution, which uses the following terminology.

The actual enumeration—with reference to a census, ‘‘The actual

enumeration shall be made within 3 years after the first meeting

of the Congress of the United States and within every subsequent

term of 10 years in such manner as they shall by law direct.’’

Actual enumeration is the terminology used here. I will offer the

observation that just as they champion Native American sovereignty, so too let us remember the exact terminology and mission

our Congress gave us in the Constitution as it exits.

As you know, Mr. Chairman, I represent eight tribes, and nearly

1 in 4 of my constituents is Native American. Arizona is second

only to Oklahoma in Native population.

The Navajo Nation, which I represent, is geographically the largest reservation in the United States, encompassing over 171⁄2 million acres and transcending four State boundaries.

According to the 1990 census, it is also home to more than

225,000 Indian residents, which is equivalent to 11.6 percent of the

Native American population nationwide. The Navajo Nation is second only to the Cherokee tribe in terms of membership numbers.

The other tribes I’m honored to represent here today, including

the Gila River Indian Community and the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community, while not as large as the Navajo Nation,

have significant populations, and it is equally important that they

are not undercounted when we conduct the 2000 census.

Mr. Chairman, I am disheartened by the fact that Native Americans are the most severely undercounted segment of our society.

According to the Committee on Adjustment of Postcensal Estimates

Report, the total undercount in Indian country was approximately

12.22 percent in 1990.

Think about it. Approximately 1 in 10 Native Americans, the

first Americans, were missed in this count. We must honor our sacred, solemn treaty, and tribal and constitutional obligations to our

first Americans by counting every single one.

The undercount has resulted in the loss of millions of dollars to

Indian Country. In my district, tribes depend on funding for a variety of programs. The amount of funds they receive is primarily determined by the decennial census count. That means that tribes

are receiving less funding for Tribal Priority Allocations, the Indian

Reservation Roads program and Indian education programs.

With the Supreme Court’s ruling this past Monday that sampling

is illegal, I believe it is imperative that the Census Bureau begin

taking active steps to reduce the undercount throughout Indian

country.

I think there are several ways that the Bureau can achieve this.

First, the Census Bureau must utilize the Local Update of Census

Addresses program created by the Census Improvement Act of

1994. The main purpose of the program is to maintain a quality

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master address file by creating partnerships with local and tribal

governments to improve address lists for the 2000 census.

Local and tribal governments will designate liaisons to review

the MAF for their particular jurisdiction. I believe it is important

that the Census Bureau nurture relationships with Native American liaisons who are more likely to be accepted and trusted by

tribal members than local census employees. I believe this program

is a worthwhile investment in helping to reduce the undercount in

Indian county.

Second, Mr. Chairman, I believe the Census Bureau should aggressively pursue the Be Counted national campaign, which will

provide a means for people to be included in the 2000 census who

may not have received a questionnaire or believe they were not included on one.

The Be Counted campaign is going to place particular emphasis

on developing ways to include population groups that have been

historically undercounted, including Native Americans. Post offices,

libraries, gas stations, or grocery stores are some of the intended

locations of the Be Counted campaign.

In many Native American communities, these locations serve as

local gathering places. These outposts could serve as an effective

base to ensure that individuals are receiving information on our

census and would help guarantee that we are counting as many

Native Americans as possible.

Third, I would support efforts by the Census Bureau to establish

complete count committees [CCCs]. A CCC would be composed of

influential government officials, community, business, and religious

leaders.

A CCC would distribute materials by the Bureau. In addition, a

CCC would help develop and create public service announcements.

Again, I believe it’s very beneficial to involve the local communities

whenever possible.

For instance, a CCC on a reservation could use its influence in

native languages to produce public service announcements that

would encourage tribal members to participate in the census.

This leads to my fourth point, which is my support not only for

public service announcements, Mr. Chairman, but for paid advertising. I know paid advertising includes time.

I see that four-letter word raise its head with the red light here,

but I would simply point out, in addition to asking unanimous consent to include my entire statement in the record, that the only

way I believe the Census Bureau can reduce the undercount in Indian country is by conducting a local review of the official census

before the Bureau submits the final count to our President.

You talked about it in your opening statement. I find that encouraging. I look forward to hearing from all of our witnesses this

afternoon, and thank the subcommittee members on both sides of

the aisle for joining us here in Arizona.

[The prepared statement of Hon. J.D. Hayworth follows:]

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Mr. MILLER. Thank you, Congressman Hayworth.

Unfortunately, he’s on the very popular Ways and Means Committee, and one of the recommendations I made and Congresswoman Maloney has talked about also, is to create waivers for people that would work for the Census Bureau so that people in the

local community could do that.

And some of that legislation may be blown to your subcommittee,

Mr. Hayworth, so do we have your support in that?

Mr. HAYWORTH. If the chairman would yield, I think I heard the

magic letters TANF, which deal with the Ways and Means jurisdiction, so given that particular collection from the alphabet, I think

we will be crossing jurisdictions; look forward to working with

members of the subcommittee.

Mr. MILLER. Thank you.

I’d like to now welcome Congressman Shadegg. Congressman

Shadegg served on our committee for the past 4 years, and we’re

sorry to see you move.

Thank you, very much, and thank you for joining us here today.

Congressman Shadegg.

Mr. SHADEGG. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I did serve on this subcommittee and enjoyed my service on the

committee. I will miss not being able to serve with you as you go

forward.

I want to welcome the ranking member to Arizona. I hope we’re

providing adequate nice weather for you and the chairman, and

thank my colleague Mr. Hayworth for bringing this hearing to Arizona.

In the interest of time, I am not going to make, at this time, Mr.

Chairman, a formal opening statement but would like to put some

things on the record. I would like to make a few brief remarks.

I commend the chairman for his efforts in this entire area. I commend Mr. Hayworth for bringing the hearing here to Arizona.

As a native Arizonan, I am deeply concerned about Arizona’s representation and about Arizona getting, as it were, a fair share. I’m

also very familiar with Native American reservations and with

their unique problems.

As it happens, while a member of the Arizona attorney general’s

office, I sued the U.S. Government for breach of this treaty to the

Navajo people and it’s obligation to educate Navajo people in a lawsuit in which the Federal Government was suing; we sued the Federal Government for failing to live up to the 1880 treaty.

In that litigation, we tried to point out that had the Federal Government lived up to some of those treaty obligations, perhaps the

State wouldn’t be under so many obligations.

But in that capacity, I’ve had a chance to get to know many of

Arizona’s Native American peoples, and the unique problems on

the reservations. It is indeed a unique problem, and it is vitally important that we ensure an accurate count.

And my goal here today, and I hope it’s the goal of every single

person in the hearing, is to ensure that we do every single thing

possible to ensure that we have a complete and full account of

every single American, but particularly every single Native American.

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It is an outrage, no less than that, that there were so many Native Americans undercounted in the last census. And I notice, Mr.

Chairman, in my conversations with you during my service on the

committee and my conversations with you in the past that that’s

your goal as well.

I would point out that one of the things that I find anomalous

in this entire debate over sampling is worthy of mentioning here

today. We know the topic here today isn’t sampling, and indeed

we’re going to get to what really matters in terms of getting a good

count first.

But in the debate that pervades this, nonetheless, of sampling,

I think it’s worth pointing out that in their plan, the Census Bureau has consistently said they will not sample on Native American

reservations.

Indeed, to double check that this week, I had a staff member contact the Census Congressional Affairs Office, and they were told,

‘‘There will be no sampling on Indian reservations. We’ll attempt

to count 100 percent of the population and then followup with an

ICM.’’ And ICM is the integrated coverage measurement.

I have always found it anomalous and, indeed, problematic and

difficult for me to understand, since I represent a State which has

many Native Americans and as we know, Native Americans were

the most undercounted in the population in the last census, that

the mechanism designed to fix the undercount, specifically sampling, is not to be used on reservations.

If it’s a good measure to fix the undercount, why isn’t it being

used on Native American reservations? I think that’s a fair question.

Nonetheless, in light of the Supreme Court ruling, I think our job

here today—I will conclude with this—is to do everything we can

to identify and to learn how we can maximize the count and get

an accurate 100 percent count of those Americans living on Indian

reservations and of all Native American people.

And I thank you, Mr. Chairman, for allowing me to speak today.

Mrs. MALONEY. One clarification, if I could. It is true that they

were not using sampling for non-response follow-up, but the Supreme Court decision knocked out non-response follow-up. The Republicans won on that issue.

But the ICM is used. The ICM, we’re now calling it the post enumeration survey. That is sampling. That goes in after the count to

correct it, and we have Census Bureau officials here that could

speak further on it.

But for the record, sampling is used on Indian reservations. It is

the Census Bureau’s plan to use sampling for the post enumeration

survey or the ICM. There will be no sampling for non-response follow-up for anyone: Latino, urban, rural, Indian reservations. There

will be none of that for anyone now because of the Supreme Court’s

decision.

But for the adjustment after the count, the ICM is used, so sampling is projected to be used on Indian reservations.

Mr. MILLER. But since the——

Mrs. MALONEY. And the Census Bureau is here. They can speak

for themselves.

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Mr. SHADEGG. That’s exactly what I said, that they will have followup with ICM.

Mr. MILLER. The ICM is unconstitutional. I mean, we won’t use

ICM. That is sampling. So that will not be used. My interpretation

and the interpretation of the attorneys I’ve talked to is that sampling will not be used, not only for the apportionment, but also for

redistricting.

For money, it’s very clear. Sampling can be used, and it very

likely will be used. So money is a different issue. But when you get

to apportionment/redistricting, the consensus turns to one issue. I

think the interpretation by many attorneys would be that it will

not be used, but it——

Mrs. MALONEY. Another point of information. If you look up apportionment and redistricting in the dictionary, there are two different definitions for it. They are two different things.

The Supreme Court dealt with apportionment, only not redistricting, so the interpretation of the Census Bureau, of the President of the United States, of many like-minded Republicans and

Democrats is that it can be used for redistricting. It will. It is supported by the President.

Mr. MILLER. This will be settled by judges. We’ve already had six

Federal judges plus five Supreme Court Justices say it’s illegal,

so——

Mr. HAYWORTH. Mr. Chairman——

Mr. MILLER. Let’s move—we need to move on, if you don’t mind.

We have all this fun in Washington, but we really are here to listen and learn. If you use sampling, you need to have the best initial count we can. And we recognize that, especially with the American Indians, that was the largest area of the undercount, and

we’re here to listen and learn about ideas and suggestions.

So what I’d like to do now is call forward the first panel. If you

will, come forward and have a seat at the table.

We have the Honorable Dr. Taylor McKenzie, who is the vicepresident of the Navajo Nation; the Honorable Ivan Makil, president of the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community; the Honorable Wayne Taylor, Jr., chairman of the Hopi Tribe; Mr. Rodney

B. Lewis, general counsel for the Gila River Indian Community; if

they’d come forward.

I’d also ask Governor Mary Thomas if she’d come forward. She

will respond to questions, and we appreciate her being here.

We want to say thank you, very much, for your hospitality, Governor Thomas, today, and knowing that you just flew in from

Washington in the middle of the wee hours of this morning and are

joining us today, we are very much appreciative of your being here.

Actually, as we do with hearings, if you all will stand, those of

you testifying, and take the oath here. And if you all would, stand

and raise your right hand.

[Witnesses sworn.]

Mr. MILLER. The record will identify they all said I do.

Thank you. Please, be seated.

And at this time, we’ll begin with Dr. McKenzie, if you’d like to

begin.

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The goal is we’re going to be finished by 5 o’clock, and so we use

the 5-minute rule—try to live with the 5-minute rule. We weren’t

too good up here, all three of us.

Please, try to use the 5-minute rule because we want to have

some time for some questions, and we have two more panels today.

Dr. McKenzie.

STATEMENT OF DR. TAYLOR McKENZIE, VICE-PRESIDENT OF

THE NAVAJO NATION, ARIZONA

Mr. MCKENZIE. Thank you, Honorable Dan Miller, Honorable

Carolyn Maloney, Honorable J.D. Hayworth—it’s good to see you—

Honorable John Shadegg.

I’m pleased to be here today. And the president of the Navajo

Nation who was scheduled to be on this panel was unable to be

here today, and he did assign me to the task of being here for this.

The president and I support the U.S. Census Bureau, and the

Navajo Nation coming together in partnership and consultation to

ensure the most accurate count possible. To achieve this, it will require the cooperation of both the Navajo Nation and the Federal

Government.

However, to ensure an accurate count, which is useful to all interested parties, the census match must recognize not only the BIA

agency boundaries, the chapter boundaries, as well as State and

county lines; the chapter being considered as the smallest unit of

local government, which then can be combined to form agency government, which then can be combined to fit into the State and

county lines. It is possible to do an accurate count combining all

of these designations.

The persons recruited for collecting the census must be prepared

for the difficulties involved. This means that the individuals must

speak both fluent Navajo and English, and that they cannot rely

on street address or post office boxes. They must encounter rugged,

rural terrain to get to the households.

Those who work on the census must do the field work to get the

information. In view of that, adequate funding must be made available to recruit adequate numbers of enumerators. It is apparent

that there are not enough people to do the job.

The publicity of the census must be in English and Navajo, and

must be oral as well as provided in written form. This publicity

must clarify some possible misunderstandings, including possible

confusion between the census number, which is assigned to each

individual member of the Navajo Nation, and also those that are

being counted in this count.

The Navajo Nation is committed to assist the Federal Government in conducting the year 2000 census because it is important

to have an accurate figure so that we can meet the serious needs

of the Navajo people at the local level. It is important that we have

an accurate count so that we may have a more justifiable access

to resources that are so needed.

However, this will also require a commitment of the Federal Government to address the unique situations based on the Navajo Nation.

The Navajo Nation is prepared to cooperate and to be a partner

in this endeavor to achieve an accurate count. It has provided a liVerDate 11-MAY-2000 09:42 Sep 27, 2000 Jkt 057800 PO 00000 Frm 00046 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 E:\HEARINGS\57800 pfrm03 PsN: 57800
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aison person already in the President’s office. It will assist in the

recruitment of persons who are qualified to do the census, and

these qualifications will be reviewed by the people at the local

chapter level.

The Navajo Nation is prepared to assist in the publicity of whatever sort may be required. The Navajo Nation is prepared to review

the maps and advertising of the census as well. We have maps that

have been prepared that can be utilized by the Navajo government,

as well as by the census takers.

There is an agreement with the Census Bureau that has been

prepared, and because of the schedule of the Navajo Nation government it has not been acted upon but will be presented Monday. It

will be approved, and if the Navajo Nation president is absent that

day, I will be glad to sign it for him.

On the other hand, what the Navajo Nation cannot do is the

chapter officers who have often been recruited to conduct the field

work, it will not be possible for them to do this because, as we understand the program of enumeration, it is a full-time job, particularly on the Navajo Nation where the people are scattered and both

the Navajo language and the English language must be used. So

it is a full-time job, and the chapter officials cannot do it part-time.

It cannot do the census for the Federal Government. Consequently, there must be adequate funding for Navajo people who

can do the job to be hired, and the job must be done appropriately.

Conducting the count in the smallest unit of local government

will come closest to counting each individual Navajo on the Navajo

Reservation. The chapter unit must be considered as a base unit

in which the counting needs to be done, and from there they can

be combined, clustered, and conformed to agency.

There are five agencies within the Navajo Nation. And these can

be coordinated and collaborated with the State and county lines

without any difficulty. It is extremely possible to do an accurate

count if we put our minds to it.

Thank you, very much.

[The prepared statement of Mr. McKenzie follows:]

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Mr. MILLER. Thank you very much.

We will continue with the panel with Mr. Makil. Is that close?

Mr. MAKIL. [No audible response.]

Mr. MILLER. Go ahead, Mr. Makil.

STATEMENT OF IVAN MAKIL, PRESIDENT OF THE SALT RIVER

PIMA-MARICOPA INDIAN COMMUNITY

Mr. MAKIL. Chairman Miller, Representatives, I appreciate this

time today and especially welcome back to the district Congressman Hayworth; always enjoy time to discuss issues with you and

Mr. Shadegg as well. I always appreciate the opportunity to visit

with you while we’re in DC. And here.

I’ll make my comments very brief because I know that most of

this information you are familiar with. There’s been, and there will

be today, many that will restate some of the facts that I think we

all know.

The facts that American Indians have been undercounted, and

until a process is developed that will provide an accurate count, we

will continue to be undercounted, and what our major concern here

today is, as has always been with tribes, is to make sure that as

our governments grow and develop that we continue to provide opportunities to create productive citizens.

And part of our ability to develop productive citizens lies within

those opportunities that come about as a result of the census count.

That’s our primary concern, because without an accurate counting,

then it is difficult to assess a number of other associated issues

that come into play when you’re dealing with numbers of people.

While we can generalize and we can look at tribal records and

the roles of tribal membership, that is only part of the story. That

is only part of what the total population will be within an Indian

community because of intermarriages, etc. So there are a number

of problems there.

But again, our focus still ought to be on how do we get accurate

counts to be able to provide services and to continue to education

our people so that our people will grow up better trusting the Federal Government system because that is a big part of the consideration here.

When that trust is in question, then it makes it difficult for people to want to participate, and so, it requires, as was mentioned,

local people from within the Indian nations themselves to be a part

not only of the counting process but in the planning process, in the

development of these programs.

While we know that there have been programs developed by the

Census Bureau that—at least in our experience—that involvement

or participation has been minimal, and there are a number of other

considerations that I’m sure would come out of more involvement

by tribes in these plans.

These true assessments—and let me go on and just say, with

some recommendations: Obviously, adequate training with tribal liaisons and census takers; hiring tribal community members; the

exemption—income exemption for temporary census takers is also

an issue, which I know has been mentioned; the use of our enrollment lists; and using high-volume tribal programs. In every Indian

community, there are the clinics, the hospitals, the health and

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human service programs where you have high volumes of traffic.

And you can have centers for information with questionnaires.

Those are the kinds of things that could be done. It takes just

a little bit of creativity; setting up booths at tribal social events:

fairs, rodeos, culture events, as well as tribal governments getting

behind this effort; and as was mentioned, passing resolutions or

Executive orders and actually committing to become more involved.

Also we think that in the planning of these sessions, we could

have brainstorming sessions with tribal leadership and representatives of tribes that might add some ideas to possible marketing

campaigns that would help to get the information out to the general public in the area.

Many of the reservations, not just in Arizona but throughout the

country, have access to television and radio, so that they have the

opportunity to have information communicated in their languages,

as well as in our schools, getting into our schools and having outreach programs there.

I see that the time has expired, and just in closing, I would like

to make sure that my written testimony can be submitted for the

record.

And if that can, then I will just conclude by saying that while

we know there have been long debates about the merits of sampling, the fact remains that many of our people still are undercounted.

And what’s important here, as I stated in my opening comment,

is that it is critical, critical not only to Indian communities but how

our citizens become a part of the State and the Federal contribution in producing productive citizens.

Until there is a program that is developed that can produce an

accurate count, I think that we have to use whatever means is

available to us to try to get that accurate count.

I believe the tribes have a keen interest in making sure that

those counts are accurate, whether it be by sampling or any other

form, simply because the production and the development of productive citizens contributes not only to Indian communities and to

our economies and creates self-sufficiency but that contribution

goes to the county, State, surrounding governments, and the Federal Government as well.

And with that, I thank you for the time and for your interest in

this issue.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Makil follows:]

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Mr. MILLER. Thank you very much, and your statement will be

included in the record.

Chairman Taylor.

STATEMENT OF WAYNE TAYLOR, CHAIRMAN OF THE HOPI

TRIBE

Mr. TAYLOR. Good afternoon, Honorable Dan Miller, Honorable

Carolyn Maloney, Honorable J.D. Hayworth, Honorable John Shadegg, and respected tribal leaders.

My name is Wayne Taylor, chairman of the Hopi Tribe. I welcome this opportunity to submit testimony to the House of Representatives Committee on Government Reform.

Our issue is to ensure accurate population count in the conduct

of the census 2000 on American Indian reservations and on the

Hopi Indian reservations in particular.

The U.S. Bureau of Census reports that, on average, there was

an undercount of American Indian people living on Indian reservations in the 1990 census by 12.2 percent, as previously stated.

The Hopi tribal government believes that for the Hopi reservation, the undercount may be higher, in fact, much higher than 12.2

percent. This belief is based on our membership records as well as

familiarity with local circumstances.

Using the 12.2 average undercount as an estimator for the Hopi

Reservation, this would result in a net undercounting of 861 of the

reported reservation population of 7,059 Indian persons. That includes Hopi, Navajo, and other tribal members.

Thus, the corrected 1990 American Indian population for the

Hopi reservation should be 7,920. Even at this level, we believe the

number is too low. The Tribe’s own official estimate of the 1990

reservation population was 9,395 Hopi.

This estimate was developed by a professional economist retained

as a consultant to the Hopi Tribe. His research resulted in a cohort-survival population growth model that takes as its starting

point a 1986 population base established from tribal enrollment figures.

The model incorporates Hopi birth and death rates obtained from

the Keams Canyon Indian Health Service Hospital and in-and-out

migration flows.

The census 1990 Hopi undercount was strongly objected to at

that time by our chairman then, Vernon Masayesva, in a letter to

the Census Bureau Regional Director, William Adams. This letter

also asserted the official Hopi reservation population estimates

given above.

While trying to come as close together as possible in the estimates of the Hopi Reservation 1990 population, there still remains

a discrepancy of nearly 1,500 persons between the Census Bureau’s

corrected count, 7,920 and the Tribe’s official 1990 on-reservation

Hopi population estimate of 9,395 people.

The most important result of this undercount for the Hopi Tribe

is a shortfall in the amount of Federal funding available for delivery of governmental services to the Hopi people. Many Federal

agencies base their revenue sharing funding formulas on the official census population count.

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For Hopi, this would most likely be the uncorrected count of

7,059 number. We believe, therefore, we have been shortchanged in

our share of Federal grant and transfer dollars by at least 20.9 percent annually for the last 8 years.

When the undercount is translated into dollars, we estimate that

several million dollars have been lost over the past 8 years. This

loss is made worse for us because we are a nongaming tribe. When

we lose benefits of Federal funding, the social impact of that loss

is doubly grievous to our villages and communities. It cannot be

easily replaced from other sources such as gaming revenue.

We believe our situation, while perhaps extreme, is not unique

among American Indian tribes, and we believe that it must not be

repeated in the census 2000, neither on Hopi nor on any other

American Indian Reservation. The importance of accurate census

figures cannot be overstated.

Some solutions: Essentially, Congress should open the possibilities for closer collaboration between the tribes and the Census Bureau so that the work of the Bureau can be facilitated but not at

the expense of tribes, many, if not most of whom, cannot afford the

extra financial burden of doing U.S. Government’s business.

I have some recommendations for you, which I hope can be submitted into the record in the interest of the time restraints we have

here.

The most controversial issue before you is that of applying statistical sampling in the decennial census. I know that the Supreme

Court this week ruled that complete enumeration is required by

law for apportionment of congressional Representatives among the

50 States. So be it.

I also know that as a result of the court ruling, more accurate,

statistical sampling methodologies can be, in fact, must be applied

to congressional redistricting and allocation of Federal funds where

the Secretary deems these methods feasible.

Let it be known that the Hopi Tribe, for reasons of achieving

more accurate population estimates at a reasonable costs, which

would, without question, result in more equitable distribution of

Federal funds to the Hopi Tribe, unqualifiedly supports the use of

statistical sampling by the Census Bureau to derive estimates of

our population.

Last, I understand you were visiting the Gila River Reservation

today, and I applaud you for that. I want to welcome you and invite

you also to the Hopi Indian Reservation, my homeland, and experience firsthand, as did the Census Bureau Central Office managers,

what it takes to collect census data in Indian country.

I am certain that the Denver Regional Staff could repeat, for

your benefit, and enlighten the data collection scenarios they derived earlier through these visits.

Thank you, very much.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Taylor follows:]

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Mr. MILLER. Thank you.

Mr. Lewis.

STATEMENT OF RODNEY B. LEWIS, GENERAL COUNSEL, GILA

RIVER INDIAN COMMUNITY

Mr. RODNEY LEWIS. Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman and members

of the Subcommittee on the Census and staff. Of course, we welcome you back, J.D. Hayworth, along with John Shadegg.

With me is Governor Thomas. Mary Thomas was able to adjust

her schedule to be here with us today, and she will make some

comments.

I’m pleased to provide this testimony regarding the problems of

historic undercounting of Indian communities in the national census.

The Gila River Indian Community was created by an act of Congress in 1859 and covers approximately 372,000 acres located in

south central Arizona, immediately south of the greater Phoenix

area.

Approximately 13,000 of our total 19,000 tribal members live

within the exterior boundaries of the community. Over the past 5

years, our reservation population has grown by nearly 44 percent,

due in part to increased economic and employment opportunities

available now for our community members.

Not only is our reservation population growing, but it’s getting

younger. Of those members who reside on the reservation, more

than 51 percent are under the age of 21.

Indian reservations pose significant and unique challenges to the

conduct of a national census. The impact of undercounting, of

course, is extremely serious and significant. Hundreds of millions

of dollars each year are provided to a few tribes through the Bureau of Indian Affairs under a Tribal Priority Allocation methodology, TPA.

The Governor has recently been intensively involved in those discussions and will have some comments about that.

The Indian Health Service also is funded with allocation methodology. Both methodologies are relying on reservation population as

a key factor in distributing these moneys for services for these

tribes.

Census data is used to determine tribes’ eligibility in extending

funding for nutrition programs for children and pregnant women,

training programs to facilitate the transition from welfare dependency to self-sufficiency, community development and economic assistance programs, juvenile delinquency prevention programs, programs to provide victim services, and police training for domestic

violence.

At this critical juncture in history, it is a major disservice to Indian people for the Federal Government to rely on flawed data to

determine representation of an already under-represented group of

people.

It is incumbent on the Federal Government, our trustee, to begin

this millennium by forging a partnership with Indian tribal governments to develop cooperative methodologies for the conduct of the

national census.

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We have several solutions, and I believe the problems that we

described—we join in the comments of the Hopi, Navajos, Salt

River Pima-Maricopa Indian Reservations in describing these problems.

But first, the Bureau of Census should examine the methods employed by Indian tribal governments to update demographic information of the tribe and to maintain up-to-date and accurate tribal

membership rolls.

Second, there are many different resources within Indian tribal

governments that can assist greatly in the conduct of the national

census. Some important resources include various tribal departments to provide direct services to community members.

Finally, it is critical that the Bureau of Census employ and utilize tribal members. That, of course, is obvious as far as the count

and enumeration is concerned. Of course, tribal members understand the reservation better, but in most cases will be—members

will be more responsive to community members.

At this point, I’d like to provide Governor Thomas with a few moments here.

Ms. THOMAS. Thank you.

STATEMENT OF MARY THOMAS, GOVERNOR, GILA RIVER

INDIAN COMMUNITY

Ms. THOMAS. Thank you, Mr. Lewis.

It is an honor, and I also want to say how much I appreciate the

comments of the tribal leaders that are at this table and the representatives and also general counsel.

We’re all in concert in what is facing us in regards to the census

and of the undercounting that’s been going on. And it’s a shame

that we’ve had to rely on this census data since 1990 to try to apportion what little money we get from the Federal Government.

As you know, the funding has been cut this year. So with more

heads being counted, there’s going to be a great deal more competition for those dollars going to the Indian tribes.

So in regard to the issue about sampling and about this scientific

method and the actual counting of heads, I wish I had a stand on

that right now, but I don’t because I don’t know enough about it.

It may work in some areas, but in most areas that have millions

of acres, compared to 372,000 that we’re sitting on, and with the

attempts now to identify roads, name roads, give house numbers,

etc., we are still a long way from completing that, but we are making strides to move in that direction.

It’s unfortunate that we are naming our streets Indian names. It

will be very, very hard to mention those or even pronounce those

and exactly what we mean.

Another problem we have is the term Indian. What is an Indian?

Is it a rural member? Is it an Indian who knows he’s an Indian

but just not affiliated with any tribe? So those are other concerns

that have been, you know, in our thoughts.

So I’m just going to conclude them then by saying that we have

striven this far in order to be heard, and some of us have come a

long way, but we appreciate the time you take to listen to our concerns, and I know most of our comments are written and will be

provided as part of our testimonies from all the tribes.

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Mr. RODNEY LEWIS. Mr. Chairman, we request that our written

statement be made part of the record.

Mr. MILLER. Very well.

Mr. RODNEY LEWIS. We would like to conclude our remarks by

thanking our hard-working Representative in the U.S. House of

Representatives, Congressman Hayworth. We deeply appreciate all

of your efforts on our behalf.

I would like to thank Chairman Miller, Congresswoman Maloney

from New York City, and the committee for coming out to Arizona

to see Indian country first hand.

Thank you very much.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Rodney Lewis follows:]

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Mr. MILLER. Thank you all, very much, for your excellent presentations. They were all very helpful.

What we’d like to do now is each of us will have the 5-minute

rule chance to ask some questions and get some more input and

advice.

Let me start. I’m assuming you’ve all been working with the

Census Bureau already and developed your list. Is that correct? I’m

just curious, how has that relationship developed at this stage so

far, briefly?

Mr. MAKIL. While there have been meetings set up and that involvement is to proceed, there really has been not good communication in terms of having our folks involved, and I think it’s—that

concerns us particularly because we’re so close to the metropolitan

area. So it’s not like it’s a real difficult thing to do. The problem

just needs to be some expression of some more effort to work on

that.

Mr. MILLER. Mr. Taylor.

Mr. TAYLOR. We have had a rather good working relationship.

And as I mentioned in my statement, we have had visits from the

Denver Regional Office. We’ve also had the manager from the central office come to Hopi.

We understand that there was work done, specifically with the

Acoma Indian Tribe in New Mexico, where they did some test sampling. They have also come to Hopi and Navajo and done some test

sampling.

So they are making what I believe are important strides to try

to understand reservations’ situations and respond better to that.

And we do have a liaison, and I have a liaison with me here as

well, Mike Kelly. And so we are doing our very best, and I do appreciate the efforts that the Census Bureau has made to make that

happen.

Mr. MILLER. Dr. McKenzie.

Mr. MCKENZIE. Thank you, sir. The Office of Navajo has been

working very hard and to try to provide us with details of the

progress programs. I think we are doing pretty good.

We have had the census—the Census Office has been out in the

area, working on proceeding with the program of census taking.

They have provided us with some detailed reports and I think

things are progressing very well, particularly the review of the

count that will be done. And they have advised that the Navajos

dropped the ball the last time, and we are prepared not to drop the

ball on that this time around.

Mr. MILLER. Mr. Lewis, do you have a quick answer?

Mr. RODNEY LEWIS. We have a good relationship, and they’ve

been here for our council meetings and been subjected to intense

scrutiny by our council persons.

Mr. MILLER. Let me ask, we have a 12 percent undercount in

1990 that we’re all very concerned about, of course. And I’m just

curious. I mean, can you give me a specific reason why?

Dr. McKenzie, you mentioned the issue of maybe having publicity

in oral form. Is that a problem, not just in written form more because of the literacy issues?

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Can you give me a specific illustration of why people aren’t completing the form? Is it trust? Is it the written form? Is it the enumerator? We’re not communicating enough?

Mr. MCKENZIE. I think it’s a combination of all of those, and particularly that the Nation—the Navajo country itself, where it is difficult for people to get to destinations because of the terrain, and

then dissemination of information is a problem.

Of course, people that don’t have a sense of urgency to review the

information that is provided, some simply don’t care. Some can’t

get to it. Some don’t understand because of the terminology. I think

that has a lot to do with it.

And I suspect, also, that maybe the number of counters may not

have been adequate in the past, but that’s a conjecture. I believe

if we did a review of the record, it would probably show there were

not enough counters and that the counting was probably not done

on a chapter level, the smallest of the local government.

If this were done, then the possibility of counting every household, every household member would give a much more accurate

count as we totaled the number of chapters in the Navajo community.

Mr. MILLER. Someone else want to say what we are missing?

Mr. TAYLOR. I think for Hopi, they are probably two primary reasons. There’s a really high unemployment rate. Hopi probably have

an average of 50 percent. And so many of our people have temporary jobs, and we’re a very mobile society as well, and so that

contributes to the undercount as well.

We have many in our population that are resistant to participating in any government interaction, and so that contributes to

that.

The forms and the protocols, perhaps, that the Census Bureau

uses also contributes to that as well.

Ms. THOMAS. I think one of the major underlying issues is the

sensitivity of giving out information for somebody you don’t know

and what they’re going to use it for, because in our traditions, and

maybe all of the tribes, have legends, stories, songs and dances

that are so sensitive. We do not even share it with anybody except

within ourselves.

So the more you give away information from yourself, there’s the

propensity to believe that it will be used against you at some point

in the future, and that is—we have been indoctrinated with that

since the settlement of the West.

Mr. MAKIL. Just to add to Governor Thomas’ comments on trust

and concern about how the information will be used is really one

of the major issues facing us in the Salt River because as close as

we are to the urban area, concern has always been about how that

information would be used. And there’s really a reluctance to share

information.

Mr. TAYLOR. That is very true of the Navajo as well.

Mr. MILLER. Thank you, very much, for your comments. My time

is up, but this issue of trust is so critical that we’ll work with the

tribal leaders to get the best numbers, and I think all of you here

know the critical portion of this issue is getting accurate numbers.

Congresswoman Maloney.

Mrs. MALONEY. Thank you.

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First of all, I join my colleagues in thanking the Gila River Community for their great hospitality and time that they spent with us,

with their skills, their hospitals. It was very informative. And I

hope, at our next meeting, to tour the Navajo and the Hopi and the

Salt River areas and appreciate very much your invitation in your

testimony today.

First of all, the census is absolutely fundamental to our form of

government. If you’re not counted, you’re not represented, and it’s

very important that we get a very accurate count. And I think it’s

very important to point out that sampling, or modern scientific

methods, are only a means of last resort to count those who

through apathy, ignorance, or fear or they just don’t want to be

counted or unwilling to be counted.

But one of the problems is if you don’t want to be counted, you

hurt your neighbor because if you’re not counted or a person isn’t

counted, then the Federal funding, the representation that’s fair, is

not there.

Now, I want to quote from Dr. Barbara Bryant, and I often quote

from her because she is a Republican, and she was the head of the

Census Bureau appointed by former President Bush.

And I quote from her because I think it’s important because

when we talk about putting more resources behind the problem,

from her experience and that of the National Academy of Sciences,

and I quote from her, enumeration simply cannot count everyone.

Throwing more money at enumeration will not improve the count.

And she states that in 1990, and I quote, we hit the wall trying

to count everyone by enumeration. We were adequately funded.

There was no shortage of funds for hiring local, community enumerators or making additional efforts. She states there was no

shortage of funds.

But in fact, she states that when local communities complained

to her that their constituencies were undercounted and gave the

Census Bureau the locations, they went out to those locations,

mounted an expensive effort to send more enumerators out there,

which contained 20 percent of the Nation’s housing units, and that

effort added only 0.1 percent, that is, one-tenth of 1 percent to the

final count.

And Congress then wanted to correct the undercount. The National Academy of Sciences came forward with a plan. It was this

plan that the Census Bureau is implementing.

We know today that the American Indian community was undercounted by 12.2 percent because the Census Bureau, in 1990, conducted an integrated—it’s called a post enumerations survey, or a

quality control. So if we had not had that quality control, then we

would not know that there was an undercount.

So my question to you—and the quality control used modern scientific methods to incorporate the solution or rather the information that there was an undercount. And I’d like to know, would you

support this effort today to have the same quality control to go

back and see if there was an undercount? And I’d like to ask everyone.

You know, if we don’t have a quality control, we don’t know

whether or not there’s an undercount.

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Ms. THOMAS. Let me begin the discussion by telling you this,

that the curiosity of what goes on in Indian country has led to sampling all along in our history.

Sampling of the diabetes that’s prevailed in my tribe, especially,

has been announced across the world that we are the highest in

diabetic incidence. The alcoholism numbers are attached to that.

And the media picks up on this, and they just blast the tribes that

we are nothing but alcoholics; we’re lazy.

So this sampling, I guess the quality sampling, is what we don’t

really know what it means. You know, is it going to be used

against us again? You know, are we going to be categorized as

being low, poor, unintelligent or things like that?

So it is still something that we need to take a real good look at,

but we have been doing sampling from day one, and it’s still ongoing.

We, on our own, do our own demographic studies, but there’s

been a lot of sampling surveys in Indian country that we don’t

know. That’s when we just put our foot down and say no.

Mrs. MALONEY. But it’s only to count the number of people involved in it.

Would anyone else have a comment?

Mr. MCKENZIE. Your Honorable Maloney, the Navajo Nation, as

a matter of fact, supports the use of statistical sampling as a

means of conducting the census, if it, in fact, makes the census

count more statistically accurate.

But there’s congressional opposition, apparently, to this. They

support enumeration. However, if the statistical sampling is to be

used to do a full census counting, then we will support that.

Mrs. MALONEY. Thank you.

Mr. TAYLOR. I think the question is not necessarily the count.

The question is the error. We know that any time that you do a

count, there will be error. And the only way that I really believe

we can get the best numbers is to look at reducing the error for

the reasons that we have stated, and it’s predominate all over, not

just on Indian reservations.

But I believe it is largely true on all of the reservations that

we’re just not going to get the participation, so statistical sampling

is the way to do it.

Mrs. MALONEY. Thank you, very much.

Mr. MAKIL. Well, what I would like to comment on is the effort

to challenge all of you to help to develop or find a better form to

eliminate the kind of undercounts that do occur.

Until there is a better program developed, I think that we support whatever, whether it’s sampling or any other type of program,

that will provide an accurate count. Those are the things that we

support.

We don’t like to get caught in these types of issues as tribes because we see our issues not as partisan issues or issues of differences. We would like to see it for people to get together to resolve this issue and find the best way possible. And you know,

some people support sampling; some don’t.

If sampling is all we have available to us as a way of providing

that accuracy where there are people missed, then I think that’s

what needs to be done. But until there can be other forms develVerDate 11-MAY-2000 09:42 Sep 27, 2000 Jkt 057800 PO 00000 Frm 00090 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 E:\HEARINGS\57800 pfrm03 PsN: 57800
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oped, maybe that’s all we have. But we encourage you to find those

other forms so that we won’t have to go through this type of situation.

Mrs. MALONEY. Thank you.

Mr. MILLER. Thank you. The Supreme Court made the decision

for us, so I think we all need to work on other ways and get the

best ideas to get the best count.

I’ll turn it over to you, Mr. Hayworth.

Mr. HAYWORTH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I’d like to extend a special welcome to Governor Thomas for flying in late from Washington yesterday; for those of you who have

traveled great distances: Vice-President McKenzie and Chairman

Taylor.

I think the chairman has a point. We can sit here and have a

challenge trying to define terms and naming different actions with

different labels or descriptions.

Suffice it to say, whatever you call quality control, if people are

not counted to begin with and they are not contacted in the followup for that quality control, it is a moot point. They are left out

of the count.

And Chairman Taylor, I thought your remarks initially, in terms

of touching on the trust in response to our friend from New York,

were especially perceptive. As long as there is a problem of trust

that undergirds and serves as the impediment to an accurate

count, whatever method is used will be challenged.

Chairman Taylor, let me begin with you because in your testimony, you said you had some ideas, but time would not allow you

to articulate some of the solutions dealing with the unique challenges that you may face with the Hopi people.

What specific changes, in terms of the count, would you make

initially, in terms of getting people counted?

Mr. TAYLOR. I think what we need to continue to do is to increase the effort to educate our people and to effectively cooperate

or collaborate with the Census Bureau, and we have, in fact, been

part of that.

But I introduced earlier our director of research and planning,

who happens to be our liaison with the Census Bureau, Mike Kelly.

Mike Kelly and his office, and there are other programs and departments within the tribe, who attempt to work with the Census

Bureau, and we are paying these people.

It’s a great expense. We’re just trying to make these efforts to

make the census numbers more accurate, and so we would like to

see that there could be some funding that could be brought to bear

for the education process and to help with the collaboration.

And I think, you know, as far as the next—we’re heading up to

the 2000. I think we need to have in mind already the 2010 and

the 2020 and being that education process immediately after the

April 2, 2000, date.

Mr. HAYWORTH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Just a brief show of hands of all our tribal leaders. Has everyone

established a liaison? Everyone. OK. That’s a very helpful sign.

The other point I wish to make personally with the others serving, most of you as your U.S. Congressmen, if there is—President

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Makil, you offered your testimony, for lack of a better term a lapse

of contact with census officials now.

I would ask all of you if you believe that the contacts with the

Census Bureau are deficient, please, contact us as soon as possible

so that we can bring the—one hesitates to use the weight, given

the physical evidence right here—so that we bear—as constitutional officers can bring that to bear in the census situation.

Chairman Taylor, you mentioned in your remarks, Vice-President McKenzie, you mentioned in your remarks, the economic challenges facing your particular and respective nations in terms of

economic development and serious unemployment.

You also made mention, particularly, employment that exists. I

think the good news is that we were taking into account the enormous challenges faced by Indian country. The chairman, in his remarks, offered a notion that we are designating and trying to set

aside more resources, precisely to count people.

And I think there may be, indeed, economic opportunities for

people to develop across jurisdictional challenges that we may face

in terms of Ways and Means, lifting some restrictions so that some

people might be hired.

But also I would like to commend all of you for the remarks you

have made in terms of tribal sovereignty and priorities based on

your own unique cultures and situations.

Mr. Chairman, this is what I would call the myth of the monolith

that exists with a variety of different groups, the notion that there

is, perhaps, no diversity in the way that the tribal governments

deal with circumstances.

And as we saw today on the Gila River Tribe, as Chairman Taylor mentioned when he said, please, come visit the Hopi people,

there is a wide disparity of circumstances there, and I think it

proves our point that if we work closely with respective tribal entities to develop a plan, to hire enumerators that are familiar and,

indeed, comfortable in the culture involved, we can have much better success.

It certainly does take the notion of transferring money, power,

and influence out of the hands of Washington bureaucrats and

pouring it into the hands of those elected leaders and those sovereign leaders to help solve this problem. I think we’re heading in

the right direction.

Mr. MILLER. Thank you, very much. We really appreciate you

joining us, and we really appreciate having Mr. Shadegg join us.

Congressman Shadegg.

Mr. SHADEGG. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I wanted to make my

remarks, quite frankly, directing them at, with all due respect, my

friends from Florida and New York because, quite frankly, Arizona

is so unique and the circumstances here are so stunning.

I happened to have had the good fortune to spend a number of

years in the Arizona Attorney General’s Office and work on election

laws in that capacity and it was quite an education.

On the back of the registration forms in Arizona, at least in rural

counties, you will actually find a little cross hair like this. And the

reason for that is when you conduct registration, as when you conduct a census, we begin in Florida or New York with an address.

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In the Navajo reservation—and I happen to have spent an election day in Hard Rocks, Vice-President McKenzie, so I’ve been out

on the reservation on election day, and you can’t list—you can’t go

to a voter and say, well, put down your address for voter registration purposes. So you’ll see cross hairs on the back of an Arizona

registration voter form like that.

And what people in rural Arizona, particularly on Indian reservations, have to do is describe where they live by references to

these two lines. And what are the two lines? They’re often a trail,

a dirt road, occasionally a paved road, a ridge line of mountains,

a fence line, a telephone pole line, a riverbed, or a ditch—an irrigation ditch, and people describe their home as 11⁄2 miles north of the

dirt road—this particular dirt road and that particular ridge.

It gives you, Mr. Chairman, when you ask what are the problems

with regard to how do we get an accurate count on Arizona reservations; when you come to New York or Florida, perhaps you

can’t envision this kind of difficulty where people describe their

residence by reference to 11⁄2 miles east of a dirt road or a particular creek or river running through the Navajo reservation. So

I think that begins to give you some idea of what we’re are dealing

with.

In addition, Vice-President McKenzie, I want to make some reference to the question of oral language. Under the Voting Rights

Act, voting materials are required to be presented to people in their

native language.

And in this particular case, you probably don’t know, that the

Navajo language is not a written language, and so the Navajos

need to be, as a matter of Federal law, provided voting material

orally in order for them to be able to understand and make selections in a fair fashion like the rest of the Americans.

That means that the Census Bureau has to provide its information orally in order to comply with that law, certainly to get an accurate count of Navajo people and other people. In that regard, I

think you begin to see some of the burdens that we have in Arizona

to get an accurate count.

I thought there were several comments that I wanted to followup

on, but I don’t think they are pertinent to the difficulty of getting

an accurate count.

Governor Thomas, I think you make a great point regarding

trust and sensitivity, and it is clearly understandable to me that

Native American people would not want to answer questions. And

the first question that comes to me is they certainly wouldn’t want

to answer questions if they were not being asked by another member of the tribe.

So my first question to each of you is, do you know if on your

reservations in the 1990 census the enumerators used were, in fact,

members of your own tribe?

Ms. THOMAS. Yes, they were.

Mr. SHADEGG. They were.

Ms. THOMAS. I want to also acknowledge somebody in the audience. The director of the Maricopa Associations of Government, Jim

Bourey, who is sitting in the front row over here.

He and his staff and the Maricopa Association of Government

have made a tremendous outreach to our particular community as

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well as Salt River’s in order to include this information on the web

sites dealing with the information for the year 2000 census, and we

will do our part too.

Mr. MILLER. Do any of you know if the enumerators used were

members of your tribe?

Mr. TAYLOR. The Hopi it was, yes.

Mr. RODNEY LEWIS. Yes.

Mr. TAYLOR. Salt River were some members hired but also others.

Mr. SHADEGG. I can see how it would be extremely important

that they would need members of their tribe in order to understand

the geography and the peoples.

By the way, I want to make a comment that, Mr. Lewis, your

testimony, I think, does an excellent job of highlighting the difficulties—some of the physical difficulties in conducting a proper census, and I commend each member of the panel.

The second question, do you believe—you’ve been asked already

about cooperation at this stage with the Census Bureau. You have

all indicated that there is some level of cooperation, and I gather

from your answers that you’d like to see greater cooperation. And,

I heard my colleague Mr. Hayworth invite you to contact him so

that he can weigh in on your behalf during that process.

I guess I’m interested if you have reason to believe that the Census Bureau is adequately working with you at this point. I know

that President Makil indicated that there was some of that there,

but not, perhaps, as much as he would like to see.

I think it is important that you understand that we think it’s important that they cooperate with you and particularly, Chairman

Taylor, you mentioned not just cooperating in doing the census but

cooperating in planning the census because if they plan it wrong,

not understanding the circumstances, then you can’t very well do

it right.

And so I’d ask the question on that and urge you, by the way,

to be the squeaky wheel and trust the Census Bureau to do their

job. So the question is, do you agree that they are working with

you? Are they working with you on planning at this point?

Mr. MAKIL. The planning part has been the part that has been

very minimal.

Mr. MCKENZIE. The Navajo has been good.

Mr. RODNEY LEWIS. We’ve had good cooperation.

I’d also like to emphasize, we need to do our part too—the tribal

governments. We need to make sure that we have a good roll mark,

road system documented. We need to make sure the location of the

houses are documented, and that’s our responsibility for our own

purposes also. That’s our responsibility.

Mr. SHADEGG. All right.

Ms. THOMAS. I might also add that our planning should not conflict with the planning of the Census Bureau. It has to be constant.

Mr. TAYLOR. I just want to add that while the cooperation has

been good, we have been involved.

I mentioned earlier that resources aren’t readily available to the

Hopi. And to the degree we want to be able to work with the Census Bureau, it’s taxing on our limited revenues, and I think there

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needs to be some resources coming in so that we can do our part

to help with the census.

Mr. SHADEGG. Thank you all, very much.

Mr. MILLER. I just want to thank you all for participating here

today. We will go now to our next panel.

Thank you, very much.

Ms. THOMAS. Could I just make one more remark and that is we

appreciate the bill about the waiver on the people who are possible

candidates to conduct the census for us. That would be a great help

to all of us. Thank you.

Mr. MILLER. Thank you.

If we can take a minute while we change the names—signs, if

the panel would come forward; our next panel will be Mr. Scott

Celley; Representative Doug Lingner is unable to join us; and John

Lewis and Mr. Jack Jackson, please, come forward.

I’d ask if all three of you would stand and raise your right hands,

please.

[Witnesses sworn.]

Mr. MILLER. The record will show that they all said I do.

And we’ll begin now with the opening statements, and we’ll give

it to Mr. Celley. Is that correct?

STATEMENT OF SCOTT CELLEY, EXECUTIVE ASSISTANT TO

GOVERNOR JANE HULL

Mr. CELLEY. Executive assistant to Governor Hull, State of Arizona and I do express the Governor’s regret that she could not be

with you here today, and she did want me to extend a welcome to

the visiting members of the committee and thank you for making

the trip out here and taking up such a critical issue like ensuring

a complete count for Native Americans in the year 2000 census.

She also wanted me to convey her appreciation—our appreciation

and the State for the role that Congressman Hayworth has taken

in highlighting the challenges that exist for our Native people. An

accurate count of our Native American population and, really, the

unrelenting advocacy that Congressman Hayworth has exhibited

for a variety of needs that the Indian communities in Arizona have

and how all of us can participate in meeting those and incorporating them in the rest of our State’s activities.

Likewise, Congressman Shadegg has been, as was mentioned

here earlier, very involved in this process in Arizona for a long

time. He is highly knowledgeable about it, and we are very grateful

that he has participated up to this point and uses his spare time

to continue to be involved in making sure that this process works.

The Governor did have a statement, which, if I may, I’ll just submit in the record. I’ll just make a few other comments so we can

keep moving along this afternoon.

As she knows well, having resided on the Navajo reservation for

a number of years, challenges there are unique. At the same time,

the contributions that our Native American population make to the

diversity and the cultural and historical nature of our State make

the incorporation accurate and complete incorporation of Native

American populations vital to getting as many as possible in the

family photo of the State of Arizona in the national census next

year.

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Accordingly, we have been grateful, in conversations that we

have had with the Census Bureau, as some of the earlier witnesses

indicated, that they have made an aggressive effort. And in my

conversations with our folks at the regional office, they have sought

out, early on, members of tribes to be employed and trained as

Census Bureau employees for the count next year so that an accurate job can be done on the reservations. And in making that interaction that brings confidence to the members of the tribe, which is

members of their own community that they know and trust.

The other issue that the Governor brings forward on every occasion that is evident, I’m sure, to you as you travel around the valley here earlier today is just how fast Arizona is growing. And

frankly, that is an area of major concern in the census, and I know

that Mr. Bourey will go into some greater detail as far as Maricopa

County is concerned.

But I think Congressman Shadegg, just a moment ago, painted

a very vivid picture of just how challenging it is in some of the

rural areas of our State to get an accurate count because of how

the information is displayed.

We found it sometimes helpful for people to know that just in

Maricopa County last year, as many people moved in as make up

the size of Manchester, NH; Berkley, CA; or Laredo, TX. We had

a whole city of that size move into this county just in the last year.

The same thing will occur between now and next year.

The big concern that the Governor has and that we really seek

your assistance on, as the Congressman indicated, we are going to

keep coming back to you for your help in helping the Census Bureau keep up with that growth.

We’ve had many conversations and we’re pleased that there’s notice that has been taken by the Census Bureau and their accurateness, but as we understand it now, the address lists for the 2000

census will be closed out at some point in time prior to the actual

census.

The estimates vary on this, but in a year’s time, just Maricopa

County will add 40- to 50,000 new addresses. If you break that

down and we cut the list off 3 of 4 months ahead of the census

itself, we’re going to miss 12- to 15,000 addresses that would just

not be on anybody’s list.

So we are eager for the process with the Census Bureau to perhaps meet with Arizona—Arizona and Nevada and a few other

States that are growing so fast, that allows us to come in and recheck those lists and maybe reformat them and add to them the

addresses of homes that have been added to our county and our

State in the time they close out their list—or are scheduled to close

them out.

With that, I think I will dispense with the rest of the sentiment

of the Governor’s remarks. You have a copy of her statement today.

I would make one observation, having just heard, Chairman Miller, your explanation of your plan here earlier, I think with some

confidence I would say that that would be greeted with great enthusiasm by Governor Hull. You’ve hit on many of the things that

we really believe are critical as far as the Federal Government and

Census Bureau’s assistance to us.

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And just a quick touch on a couple other things. One is as far

as the advertising budget is concerned, it is clear, I think, in earlier

testimony that we have some unique communities in Arizona with

unique needs, especially the education and assurance that they can

rely on the confidentiality of the census survey and also knowing

how important the census is to the benefits that they, their families, and children receive. Having an increased promotional program such as you suggested, I think, is very grievous.

I would make one observation, as Congressman Hayworth noted

earlier in conveying how important the Federal Government is to

the States, that if it would be possible for you to identify both the

advertising budget and matching program in a way that allows the

decisions and resources to be available on the local level and decisions to be made on the local level.

But as Congressman Shadegg mentioned earlier, there are very

unique situations in Arizona. If the decisions about how to use

those resources for a more accurate census can be made as close

to, say, the chapter level, the better off the census—the better and

more accurate the census would be.

And we appreciate the opportunity to be here.

Mr. MILLER. Thank you, very much. Let me ask one final question. I think I saw a photograph in the paper earlier this month

that showed that all statewide elected officials in the State Office

in the State of Arizona are women. Is that correct?

Mr. CELLEY. That’s correct, yes.

Mr. MILLER. Did you see that?

Mrs. MALONEY. I most certainly did, and I was hoping one of

them would come and testify. But we did have the Governor here,

and she’s the first woman to be elected Governor of a tribe, as I

understand it. So women are doing very well in Arizona. I ought

to spend some time out there, and find out how you made that happen. I think it’s great news.

Mr. CELLEY. Mr. Chairman, four of our five statewide women officials are Republican.

Mrs. MALONEY. One is a Democrat.

Mr. CELLEY. One is a Democrat, yes. Representative Maloney, we

do have a bumper sticker for sale in the gift shop at the State Capitol that says ‘‘Arizona, State for Women Leaders.’’

Mrs. MALONEY. I’ll have to buy one of those.

Mr. MILLER. Thank you, very much.

Mr. Lewis.

STATEMENT OF JOHN LEWIS, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR,

INTERTRIBAL COUNCIL OF ARIZONA

Mr. JOHN LEWIS. Chairman Miller, members of the committee,

my name is John Lewis, and I am the executive director of the

Intertribal Council of Arizona. The Intertribal Council of Arizona

is an association of 19 tribal governments in Arizona. The ITCA appreciates the opportunity to provide testimony on census 2000.

I want to thank you for holding a field hearing in Phoenix and

providing tribes an opportunity to share their ideas on achieving

an accurate census count in the community and certainly share the

committee’s thoughts on ensuring the fair and accurate count of

American Indian people.

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And I think that on improving the count, as has been stated,

what I’d like to do is submit for the record written testimony and

highlight some of our thoughts and recommendations for you.

And I think one is just in terms of improving the count as has

been shared with you, the working relationship really does need to

be based on trust between the Congress and the agency and the

tribes. We need to really work toward that and ensure the working

relationship there, and the outcome will be very successful.

And certainly appreciate the approach the committee has reflected in the opening statements. A number of things that you

have identified that you want to do, particularly in relation to making changes to improve this effort, were very well thought out and

we really appreciate the committee and its approach.

On hiring, again, I think the Census Bureau should continue to

recruit and hire American Indians on the reservations that represent the population to be enumerated, with special consideration

of the hiring of Indian elders, again, due to the large and growing

numbers of elderly tribal members who are more likely to trust

other elders; and also share the efforts of Congress to approve legislation that would waive certain income limits for recipients of

Federal benefits who serve in the temporary positions during the

census.

That education and outreach program and funding be appropriated and maintained through the Census Bureau to facilitate direct consultation with American Indian representatives for the purpose of seeking input on media campaigns, education materials,

and promotional items; ensure that census media campaign materials are available in languages other than English, especially for

the audio and visual communications.

We also urge the Census Bureau to distribute census promotional materials to tribes as early as possible in 1999, and particularly develop education and materials for problem members to

inform them on how to specify their tribal membership on both the

short and long form. For the data and reports to be useful, the

tribes must have access to tribally specific and residential numbers.

In the area of census methodology in Arizona, the majority of

tribes have requested the method termed update and enumerate

for counting in the 2000 census. This method ensures the census

workers visit the households and assist household members in completing the census form. If household members are not home at the

time of the visit, the census worker would revisit to ensure an accurate count.

We urge Congress to allocate the necessary funds that all tribes

may, if they desire, use this method and for the Census Bureau to

consult with tribes to educate and motivate American Indians to

respond to the census.

Also the Census Bureau’s continuing research and development

of technological advances, including but not limited to laptops and

geographical mapping, which can assist in improving the enumeration of tribes in remote locations.

In the area of tabulation of data on American Indians, that it’s

important for tribes to have the knowledge to use the information

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from the census and opportunity to have reports and data available

to them in a user friendly format.

All census reports include separate American Indian tabulations

by tribe, irrespective of their small representation; that procedures

be developed to allow tribes access to data bases of small numbers

of less than 50,000 records.

I think this is the information that is needed by tribes to be able

to assess and provide a baseline data for evaluation of community

needs and program planning.

In the area of improving the accuracy of the count, that—we do

know that the Supreme Court recently ruled that current law prohibits the use of scientific sampling for apportioning congressional

seats among the States.

While the court’s decision prohibits the use of these methods for

purposes of apportionment, it does not restrict these scientific

methods for redistricting or for the distribution of resources tied to

census numbers. We’d recommend the scientific sampling supplement aggressive direct counting method.

We’d also like to see Congress provide funding to employ the

most up-to-date scientific methods for nonapportionment processes.

And I’d like to conclude by saying that we’d like to acknowledge

the efforts of the Census Bureau in Denver Regional Census Center. They have recruited American Indian staff to work closely with

the tribes in Arizona. The Tribal Partnership Program is strengthening the government-to-government relationship between the

tribes and the Census Bureau.

Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Mr. John Lewis follows:]

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Mr. MILLER. Thank you.

Mr. Jackson.

STATEMENT OF JACK C. JACKSON, JR., DIRECTOR OF GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS, NATIONAL CONGRESS OF AMERICAN

INDIANS

Mr. JACKSON. Chairman Miller, Representative Maloney, Congressman Hayworth, Congressman Shadegg, good afternoon.

On behalf of Ron Allen, president of the National Congress of

American Indians and chairman of the Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe

located in Washington State, I would like to thank you for this opportunity to present a statement on concerns facing American Indians in the decennial census.

My name is Jack Jackson, Jr. I am a member of the Navajo Nation and was born and raised in Arizona. I am the second son of

Arizona State Senator Jack Jackson, Sr., who represents District

Three and is in the audience today.

Currently, I am director of governmental affairs for the National

Congress of American Indians, the oldest, largest, and most represented Indian organization in the Nation. On behalf of our 250

member tribes I want to thank this committee for holding a field

hearing in Phoenix to enable tribal leaders an opportunity to share

their ideas on obtaining an accurate count of our people in the 2000

census.

We all know that the 1990 census undercounted the American

Indian population by 4.5 percent. There were 175,000 missed; 12.2

percent of those living on reservations were not counted. It should

come as no surprise, then, that the American Indians will not settle for a similar outcome in 2000.

We applaud enactment of the Decennial Census Improvement

Act in 1992, a law that directed the National Academy of Sciences

to conduct a thorough review of the census process and recommend

ways to increase the accuracy. We also applaud the Census Bureau’s efforts to simplify census procedures and operations and to

form early and more extensive partnerships with tribal government.

We commend this committee for seeking the view of those who

best know and understand the pulse of their communities and who

can recommend the most effective ways to encourage participation

in the census.

We are hopeful that this early, sustained effort to improve the

census process will lead to a fairer and more accurate count of the

American Indian population in the 2000 census.

We have several recommendations, which are included in my

written testimony, and I just want to highlight the most important

ones.

One is that the Census Bureau must abide by the constitutionalbased government-to-government relationship set out in the President’s 1990 Executive order. To this end, we urge the Census Bureau to sign its American Indian and Alaska Native Policy, which

recognizes and commits to a government-to-government relationship with federally recognized tribal governments that will be reflected in all its policies, plans, and programs.

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Chairman Miller, Representative Maloney, we firmly believe that

these recommendations for culturally sensitive activities, guided by

knowledgeable tribal leaders, as we heard today, will go a long way

toward improving the count of American Indians in the 2000 census.

At the same time, we recognize that the barriers to an accurate

count on Indian reservations are often pervasive and difficult to

overcome, no matter how well intentioned the effort. We are not

willing to start the next century with an incomplete portrait of our

people and their homelands, a portrait that might exclude nearly

1 out of every 8 Indians residing on our diverse tribal lands.

Earlier in my statement, I mentioned the National Academy of

Sciences study requested by Congress shortly after it became clear

that the 1990 census had fallen far short of expectations. The panel

of experts convened by the Academy, along with the vast majority

of experts who have studied the census process, reached a sobering

conclusion: Traditional census methods alone cannot reduce the differential undercount of American Indians, Alaska Natives, and

other people of color that have plagued the census for so many decades.

Mr. Chairman, there are many tribes that have come to share

the belief of these many scientific experts that the census must

change because our country is changing. Intense preparation and

counting efforts are critical components of the census regardless of

whether sampling techniques are a part of the design.

That is why NCAI and the tribes will be do everything possible

to assist the Census Bureau in compiling a high-quality address

list, preparing and distributing appropriate educational and promotional materials and identifying qualified tribal members to

serve as crew leaders, enumerators, and outreach specialists.

But even a massive coordinated counting effort will inevitably

miss millions of people, far too many to ignore. We must build

promising, new methods into the traditional process in order to

give life to these invisible people.

Therefore, we expect and urge Congress to support the Census

Bureau’s plan for a census that uses sampling and other statistical

methods to improve the accuracy of a so-called traditional census

count.

We are fully aware of the Supreme Court’s ruling earlier this

week, finding that the law prohibits the use of sampling in calculating the population totals used by congressional apportionment.

But we are heartened by the court’s recognition that the law does

not prohibit, and may require, the use of sampling methods to

produce data that can be used for other purposes, such as the allocation of Federal aid.

It is the second planned use of sampling in the Bureau’s original

2000 census plan, the Integrated Coverage Measurement Program,

that is designed to eliminate the persistent and highly disproportionate undercount of minorities and poor.

This statistical program was planned for communities of every

kind, including on Indian reservations. We believe it represents the

only real hope for avoiding the unacceptably high undercount of

American Indians and Alaska Natives that occurred in 1990.

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We believe that Congress must consult with the Census Bureau

immediately to determine the feasibility of adjusting the census

counts for any undercounts and overcounts. Then Congress and the

administration must ensure that the Bureau has the fiscal and personnel resources it needs to get the job done.

Mr. Chairman, thank you for this opportunity to present this

statement in connection with this vital issue. I thank you for the

opportunity to appear before you today and would be happy to answer any questions you may have. Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Jackson follows:]

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Mr. MILLER. Thank you all, very much.

Congressman Hayworth had a funeral to attend and had to

leave, so he won’t be joining us this afternoon.

Before we begin questions, first of all, I want to welcome Senator

Jackson. It’s nice to have someone from the State legislature join

us. Thank you, very much, for being with us this afternoon.

Congressman Shadegg, thank you, again, for your explanation.

We both represent fairly urban areas, and you represent the extremely urban area of Manhattan. But this is part of the process

that I think we’re here, is to help get a better understanding of the

problems. So I think we gained a great deal by our visit this morning, by Governor Thomas and other people who are here.

As a former statics professor, I have taught statistics for many

years, and I respect the use of sampling. But the fact is, you know,

the Supreme Court has spoken, so what we need to do now is move

forward and do the best job we can.

And I came out with a proposal to provide as many resources as

is possible to throw at this issue to get the best count possible.

That is the reason that, knowing that the American Indian is an

undercounted population, we really want to work as much as we

can on this very specific problem because we just kind of dwell on

that.

And I actually think—there’s no question the Supreme Court

ruled on the issue of apportionment, and I think it—legal authorities tell me because of districting. But for money, you’re right. It

does. And the court made it very clear that you can use any method you have to. We just have to have a number to trust. And when

you get to larger populations, county populations, city populations,

it’s a little different issue in statistics.

But anyway, as I have proposed, there are a lot of ways to increase the spending for paid advertising. We’ve not used the paid

advertising program in the past. With $100 million proposed, and

I propose increasing it to $400 million, I think the President will

probably be coming out with a proposal. Hopefully, he will propose

an increase too. But we are willing to spend the money.

I’m curious about how you would suggest targeting advertising

that would be most effective? And maybe advertising is not the

most effective way. Maybe it’s just the partnership program. How

do you think is the most effective way to handle that?

Mr. JOHN LEWIS. Some of the ideas and thoughts were presented

by the tribal leadership, but I think the audio and visual. And

many of the tribes have access to radio programs either in their

own language or by their own radio stations or by the nearby offreservation radio stations that provide programs for them and advertising. I think that the use of that and television would be possible and would be very important.

So identifying the links, the communication, particularly radio

and TV that go into the reservations, would be very important, and

that is something that does have its benefits in terms of communication at this time. I think that needs to be looked into and dealt

with.

Mr. JACKSON. I’d like to say that any media campaign must adhere to the principle of tribal consultation. I know that in the past

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there was a big problem with the radio campaign, and that

stemmed from lack of consultations with the tribal leadership.

Mr. MILLER. Mr. Celley.

Mr. CELLEY. I think one of the other aspects of your program

that might have more use, I think there are, in certain areas, 21

registered tribes in Arizona.

And one of the points that we all want to make is that there is

incredible diversity in the populations and the way to reach them

differs. You cannot just put a cookie cutter down and say this is

the way we’re going to communicate with tribes because the tribes

are different.

One of the initial possibilities with the partnership program and

also just putting specialists out in some of these areas is potentially having census specialists available in these areas.

As we mentioned earlier, especially Navajo reservations, they are

organized by chapter houses; put on specific events in those areas

where the community is used to gathering anyway, have a presentation made by leaders in the community who are trusted and who

everyone relies on, more accurate information could be provided.

That isn’t an advertising campaign. That is a very specific culturally sensitive way of using the resources we have available for

getting an accurate count in those hard-to-reach communities.

Mr. MILLER. I didn’t have time to ask the question of the previous panel, but how accurately do the Indians know their population within their reservations right now? A lot of them are in

very remote areas. But how accurate is the list that they keep

today? Are you aware of a registration program or what have you?

Mr. JOHN LEWIS. The tribes do a very good job looking at the enrollment and wanting to have tribal enrollment and keeping these

records up, and it is required for many of their activities that they

do that.

That’s a constant, ongoing effort by the tribe in achieving that.

And certainly, with the high-technology age, it has become a little

easier, but that is a continuing challenge for the tribes to maintain

that.

As far as identifying people throughout the tribal lands, again,

a lot of that is well-known by the tribe. But again, as a matter of

how best to access or get to map that, and the tribes are proceeding

in doing that as well. So they are well on the way to doing a very

good job in maintaining that information.

Mr. MILLER. Thank you.

Mrs. Maloney.

Mrs. MALONEY. I would like to add my voice in thanking all the

panelists for coming today, particularly Mr. Jackson who came all

the way from Washington. We appreciate your testimony. We appreciate you being here, and I must acknowledge your father.

I didn’t realize he was a State Senator here in Arizona and has

probably been through redistricting several times and knows how

important it is to get an accurate count not just for planning purposes but for representation purposes.

Mr. Lewis, I had a wonderful day today with your brother. He

was with us on our tour of the reservation, and I just wanted to

mention how much I enjoyed the company of your brother.

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I loved your testimony. You went right to the point, recommending that scientific sampling supplement aggressive direct

counting methods as a result of post enumeration survey.

But my question today is really directed to Mr. Celley. As you

know, Phoenix joined a lawsuit in 1990 objecting to the

undercount, as the city officials saw it, and they were a plaintiff

in a 1990 lawsuit suing the Commerce Department because the city

of Phoenix wanted modern, scientific methods sampling adjustment

of the census to occur.

Can you tell us why the city was in that lawsuit?

Mr. CELLEY. Mr. Chairman, Representative Maloney, I could

make a flippant observation that it was another of the unwise decisions by the mayor. I do not know why they did that.

I know from my conversations with the city of Phoenix officials

presently, that they know that under any scenario that you conduct

a census, you’ve got to have an accurate and complete—or complete

as possible base from which to base any additional statistics or adjustments.

And so I think the commitment has been, this time around—in

fact, I know there’s contemplation of a lawsuit by the city this time,

and they are not, as far as I know, participating in it because a

decision was made that every resource needed be made to the most

full and complete actual count of people under any scenario the

Census Bureau makes use of hereafter.

Mrs. MALONEY. Well I, must say that Dr. Bryant, who was a Republican, stated that sometimes they enumerated every door six

times, and if someone doesn’t want to answer the door, yet everyone knows there’s people in there, there’s a problem.

I thought one of the most telling questions was asked by Stevenson on the Supreme Court. He asked: What if everybody in the

community knows a family of six lives in a building but they won’t

answer the door, and the Census Bureau goes there 20 times and

they still won’t answer the door? How would those people be counted?

And the person arguing said as a zero. Bryant said, what if the

lights go on and off at night? It would still be counted as a zero.

But I want to ask you another question, and I know that it pertains to legislation that I support, that the chairman is working on

with my colleague Carrie Meek. They are making an effort to hire

people from welfare to work on the 2000 census.

But unfortunately, in some States, taking a temporary position

with the Census Bureau can cost an employee certain benefits,

such as health care. In addition, these workers—one particular employment can—you have to wait up to 6 months for their benefits

to be reinstated.

Can you explain Arizona’s welfare laws with regard to temporary

employment? As you’ve heard, there is an effort, and the tribal

leaders have supported it, that we hire welfare recipients to help

with this count. Would Arizona—can you comment about the laws

in Arizona? Would they be deprived of their health care and their

benefits for 6 months? Do you know?

Mr. CELLEY. If I may, if I could just respond to your earlier comment as to people being home and not responding and as we’ve discussed here earlier today, it is a very real issue, especially in the

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reservation communities. I would suggest also, within a very few

blocks or miles of here in Hispanic areas of our city that confidence

in the census process needs to be established.

I think the chairman’s proposal to spend more money advertising

and have more people in the community with confidence and with

neighbor/neighbor relationships so that there is not concern about

that person knocking on the door, is an extremely useful way of

getting at that.

It’s a big issue for us here, and it is very helpful to spend some

time and some money establishing just the base confidence of this

process and understanding by those.

Mrs. MALONEY. I agree. I agree. I think we should spend all the

money, have all the visits and everything, but they still have had

an undercount.

Mr. CELLEY. Just to your welfare-to-work question as well, I am

not an expert in that area and cannot in detail respond to it. But

I would say, we actually are in the state of flux in Arizona with

our welfare-to-work program, and not all of our rules have been established yet, partly because it is sitting on our waiting list and

has been for a year now, to approve to allow participating in that

program.

But we have been working with the Census Bureau on our State

welfare-to-work program because I agree that is a marvelous way,

especially in the economy such as we have, that everyone who

wants a job, basically, has a job.

Mrs. MALONEY. I certainly support the Chair’s comments on that.

Very briefly, I——

Mr. CELLEY. If I could just say, this is a tremendous way, we

think, and the Census Bureau is an advocate, wherein people who

do not have a job skill and trying to get off of welfare can get training by the Census Bureau in a short-term situation; and in that experience, learn job skills that they could use elsewhere.

Mrs. MALONEY. If you could get back to our committee in writing,

maybe we should reach out to all of the States to get this information.

My last question, very briefly, is if the undercount is eliminated

or at least significantly reduced for the State of Arizona in the

2000 census, do you know if Arizona would gain two more seats in

the U.S. Representatives?

Press reports estimate that if the undercount was correct in Arizona, you would gain two congressional seats. Have you looked at

that, or do you have any——

Mr. CELLEY. Mr. Chairman, Representative Maloney, I believe

the estimates to date, based on the numbers such as we know

them, does award both a first and second division seat in Arizona

with some narrow margin. So it is something we’ve got to keep a

very careful eye on.

One of the things that we have some confidence in is the way

that we were growing and the pace that it continues to grow, even

presently growing faster than had been predicted, that we may

have a little more of a cushion than we thought.

Mrs. MALONEY. That’s probably why Arizona joined the lawsuit.

Mr. CELLEY. I think it was a narrower loss, actually.

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Mrs. MALONEY. Well, what would be the impact on the State legislature if the undercount was significantly reduced? Do you have

any feeling for the impact on the State legislature?

Mr. CELLEY. Mr. Chairman, Representative Maloney, Congressman Shadegg knows well, we have a hard time predicting exactly

what it’s going to look like after the next count because it’s uncertain who’s going to be deciding how to draw the lines and who will

be drawing them.

There is a proposal in the legislature to farm that out, and it

may be established in a way none of us have ever seen before.

Mrs. MALONEY. My time is long over. Thank you all. Excellent

testimony from all of you.

Mr. MILLER. Thank you.

Mr. Shadegg.

Mr. SHADEGG. Thank you, very much. You’re welcome to have

some of my time Mrs. Maloney. I enjoyed the questioning. I do

thank the panel for its participation.

Let me focus on one issue that I found fascinating. In your testimony, Mr. Jackson, which I thought, by the way, was some of the

most comprehensive I’ve seen, I noticed you said at one point the

census is planned at the national level but carried out at the local

level, and you point out that that’s very true on Indian reservations

and trust lands.

And then I was particularly interested in your first recommendation, which is the government-to-government relationship. And you

say, specifically, we urge the Census Bureau to sign its American

Indian and Alaska Native Policy, which recognizes and commits to

government-to-government relationships with federally recognized

tribes and that that will be reflected in all its policy, plans, and

programs.

If you recall, Chairman Makil made some point about the importance of involving tribes and tribal government and tribal leadership in the planning of the census.

I guess I would like to have you explain to me, if you could briefly, the Census Bureau’s American Indian and Native American policy. Explain to me, if it’s not been signed, why it hasn’t been

signed. Let me know if you have a perspective of the degree with

which the Census Bureau is cooperating with tribes in planning

the census on Indian reservations and in any Indian trust lands

across the country.

Mr. JACKSON. As far as the Bureau’s policy, my understanding

is it’s been sitting at the Census Bureau for the last 3 years. I don’t

have an answer as to why it hasn’t been signed.

As far as to answer your second question, we do sit on the Secretary’s 2000 Advisory Committee, and we have had an opportunity

for the last 5, 6 years to provide recommendations as we hear them

from our member tribes. And I would like to commend the Census

Bureau for listening to those recommendations and working with

us.

They continue to provide representatives to our national conferences. We do hear from the Secretary as well as the Director of

the Census Bureau. So on a national level, we do work with the

Census Bureau and continue to do that. And we hope that in our

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upcoming conference that we will also continue to have that input

from the Census Bureau.

Mr. SHADEGG. You mentioned in your testimony that your specific recommendations are—I mean your oral presentation here,

your specific recommendations are set forth in your written testimony, and it numbers at least seven that I can read. I presume all

of those have been provided to the Census Bureau and that they

are working with you on all of them.

Mr. JACKSON. Yes.

Mr. SHADEGG. The discussion, of course, always consists over this

issue of sampling, and some people are going to carry that fact forever and ever. I think the chairman made a good point, and that

is the Supreme Court has written its decision. It is the very highest

court in the land. The Supreme Court has said that sampling cannot be used for apportionment.

They left the door open. I’m not knowledgeable about that. I believe the door is open on the question of districting and really open

on the question of allocation of resources.

Would I be accurate in saying that you have your greatest concerns with regard to the allocation of resources? If sampling can

improve—I’m not necessarily saying that it can, but if it can improve—the count for purposes of allocation of resources is that

something you would like to see occur?

Mr. JACKSON. We have not taken a formal position on that. We

do take a position on particular issues relying on member tribes,

but we do hear some of the tribes on an informal basis and that

would be, probably, the main objective.

Mr. SHADEGG. I appreciate that. You can’t live in the State all

your life, as I have, and not see that there are crying needs for resources everywhere but particularly in all sorts of minority communities and particularly on the American Indian reservations.

Mr. Chairman, I don’t believe I have anything further at this

time.

Mr. MILLER. OK. Let me ask. Is everyone scheduled at this time

for full post census local review? Are you familiar with that? In

1990 they allowed communities and reservations to get the number

before they became official to see if there were any mistakes made.

That’s something that was used in 1990 so that counties or cities

or tribes had the chance to make sure that the Census Bureau did

the right job, and they had a few weeks to review it before they

became official numbers. That is not going to be allowed by the

Census Bureau right now—the 2000 census. I don’t quite understand why.

Mr. CELLEY. Mr. Chairman, I am not familiar with that, but that

is a question I would encourage you to present to Mr. Bourey.

Mr. MILLER. OK. Thank you.

Mr. SHADEGG. Mr. Chairman, your legislation would allow that,

though.

Mr. MILLER. Yes.

Mr. SHADEGG. And would enable, for example, tribal leaders to

look at the preliminary count before it goes to the Census Bureau

to correct any apparent errors that they find. Is that correct?

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Mr. MILLER. Right. It would allow the 2000 census to give the

most trusted numbers; and if you find mistakes, you can go back

and correct them.

With that, let me thank you, very much, for the excellent testimony and excellent response to the question. You’ve been very

helpful. Thank you, very much.

I will ask the next three panelists to come forward and have a

seat.

We’ll take a 5-minute break.

[Recess taken from 2:15 p.m., to 2:30 p.m.]

Mr. MILLER. If the three members will rise and raise their right

hands.

[Witnesses sworn.]

Mr. MILLER. The record will state they all stated affirmatively.

And let us begin with Mr. Bourey.

Mr. Bourey, by the way, I used to work with him for a time in

the Ninth Congressional District. So it’s nice to see you.

STATEMENT OF JAMES M. BOUREY, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR,

MARICOPA ASSOCIATION OF GOVERNMENTS

Mr. BOUREY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Chairman, committee members, thank you for providing me

the opportunity to testify in this field hearing.

Holding an accurate census 2000 is very important to me, both

as executive director of the Maricopa Association of Governments

and as a representative of the International City/County Management Association on the Census 2000 Advisory Committee.

Aside from its use in determining congressional representation,

the census is used to distribute $180 billion in Federal funds annually. We estimate that in Maricopa County alone, each housing unit

counted represents $10,000 in Federal and State funds to local governments in the decade after the census. With so much at stake,

we work together to achieve an accurate census count.

I have four recommendations to help us accomplish that objective: To account for new growth right up to the day of the census;

to conduct a post census local review; to meet all census program

deadlines; and to designate a highly visible census 2000 advocate.

I will address each of these recommendations for you.

States with rapidly growing metropolitan areas, such as Arizona,

is presented a particular challenge for census 2000. Since the last

census in 1990, Maricopa County has added 683,000 residents,

more people than currently reside in Washington, DC, alone.

We are constructing housing units at the rate of more than 100

a day. Our population has been increasing between 85,000 and

100,000 people a year for the past 3 years. The Bureau of Census

is currently assembling its master address file, which contains addresses for housing units throughout the United States.

However, during that time period between the preparation of the

address file and the start of the census 2000, another 40,000 housing units may be constructed and more than 100,000 residents

added to our region.

In fact, this is a 1991 aerial photo that identifies an area in the

northwest region that was an unincorporated area. By 1998, an additional 3,000 housing units have been constructed in this 4-

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square-mile area. This is happening in many areas throughout our

region.

We recommend the Bureau of Census take the following steps to

ensure that this growth is taken into account.

No. 1, rely on building permits issued in 1999 to predict the new

housing units that will be in place on April 1, 2000. The Census

Bureau could then send questionnaires to these addresses. We have

this information in the data base, so we can call up that data with

the addresses and provide that to them.

Work with U.S. Postal Service, where possible, to assist in identifying new housing units that are not included in the address file.

Next, to use local government personnel to supplement Census

Bureau efforts to make available and deliver extra census questionnaires to newly identified housing units.

The current census 2000 operational plan does not include an opportunity to review preliminary post-census housing-unit counts as

was done in the 1990 census. Instead, local governments are being

given an opportunity to participate with the Bureau of Census in

updating the address file and housing unit counts prior to the start

of the census.

While I commend the Bureau of Census for this proactive approach, many jurisdictions have not participated in the program.

Those cities will be given their final housing unit-count population

figure without having ever provided input. Even if entire subdivisions have been missed, there will be no chance to correct the count

other than to file an appeal.

I strongly urge you to consider taking whatever steps are necessary to include a post-census local review as was done in 1990

to supplement the precensus address followup update.

The post-census review would involve providing estimated housing unit counts by block to local jurisdictions and giving them adequate time to review those counts and report any missed housing

units to the Census Bureau. The Bureau would then undertake followup efforts to verify those addresses.

For the past several years, deadlines for programs associated

with the census 2000 have been missed. These include the deadlines for providing us with information for updating addresses, updating city and town boundaries, and recommending changes to

census tracts and block groups. One thing is certain: The April

2000—April 1, 2000, deadline for conducting census 2000 is firm.

Therefore, we must agree and recognize that schedules need to

be met. To achieve this, I recommend that the Bureau of the Census do several things.

Enter into a variety of creative partnerships with other government agencies and the private sector to obtain information needed

for census 2000. This includes updated address files and maps,

changes to census geography, and updated city and town boundaries.

Also establish a method to confirm receipt of information from

local government agencies and to notify them, also, about whether

that information is being utilized.

Next, to deploy more resources and streamline the process for resolving discrepancies between local government address files and

Census Bureau files. The current reconciliation and appeals procVerDate 11-MAY-2000 09:42 Sep 27, 2000 Jkt 057800 PO 00000 Frm 00129 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 E:\HEARINGS\57800 pfrm03 PsN: 57800
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ess is cumbersome and requires extensive communication between

local communities and the Census Bureau in a relatively short period of time.

Next, to reexamine work schedules of the Census Bureau employees to ensure that important issue areas are adequately covered at critical times. We’ve experienced situations where the only

individual qualified to respond to a specific question on a time-sensitive matter is not available.

And finally, to increase the number of hours that staff is available in the regional offices and in Washington. Currently, the time

differences and flex time practices provide a very narrow window

for communicating with key individuals.

Especially with the 3-hour time difference, they are there on the

job from 7 to 3. We have got, basically, a couple hours in the morning before they go to lunch.

The complexity of preparation for census 2000 and a wide range

of technical and political issues have resulted in dissension among

groups that ultimately must work in harmony to achieve a successful census 2000 count.

Therefore, I recommend that you consider a highly visible census

2000 advocate to be designated, who can champion the census 2000

on a regional or national level. The advocate would work to unify

a wide variety of interests and secure bipartisan support on the importance of the census.

Mr. Chairman, committee members, given the significance of the

census 2000 and the recent Supreme Court decision on sampling,

I urge that these recommendations be addressed as soon as we can.

I would be happy to assist in those efforts in any way I can.

Thank you for the opportunity to address the committee.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Bourey follows:]

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Mr. MILLER. Thank you.

Ms. Gaddy.

STATEMENT OF LEVONNE GADDY, FOUNDING PRESIDENT OF

MULTIETHNICS OF SOUTHERN ARIZONA IN CELEBRATION

[MOSAIC]

Ms. GADDY. Thank you all for inviting me here today for this testimony.

My name is Levonne Gaddy. I’m representing the MOSAIC

Multiethnics of Southern Arizona.

Comedian and actor Steve Martin in the opening scene of the

movie entitled ‘‘The Jerk,’’ stood amongst a large family of African

American individuals and stated forlornly, I was born a poor, black

child.

The contrast between the dark faces and Mr. Martin’s whiteness,

his obvious lack of rhythm, and the sheer ludicrousness of the

scene invoked laughter and chuckles from audiences.

Well, the truth is that in a small, segregated, rural North Carolina town, I was born a poor, black child. Many times during my

childhood and early adult years, people chuckled as I insisted that

I was black. That hurt.

As a youth, I was taught that race is a biological fact. Can you

imagine the insanity of believing I was biologically black and seeing in the mirror that I was white?

America’s rigid, racial, categorizing system has harmed countless

youth. I and millions of others have been forced by our government

to lie about our racial makeup. Multiracial people have a history

of being denied, shamed, quieted. We have been America’s secret.

I lived one-third of my life in a country where it was against the

law for me to exist.

The marriage in the late 1800’s of my grandparents, two people

of different races—different race was an illegal union. How bad

was the act of marrying someone of a race different than one’s

own? The abolition of anti-interracial marriage laws in 1968 laid

the foundation for multiracial individuals to legally exist.

Thirty years after the Supreme Court ruling, for the first time

in the history of this great Nation, we multiracial people can finally

be acknowledged by our government and have the opportunity to

be truthful by checking all the racial heritages that we identify

with on a government form on the census 2000.

The Office of Management and Budget, Directive No. 15, revision

of 1997, mandates that multiracial people have the option to check

one or more boxes when we racially self-identify. We were no

longer forced to lie, and the citizens of American can no longer lie

to itself about our existence.

Over the last 20 years, 70 to 80 grass-roots, multiracial, support

organizations have sprung up across America.

In her research, Cornell University Ph.D. Kim Williams has concluded that the multiracial movement in America may be the fastest growing social movement in America’s history and may have accomplished more in a short time than any other.

It is my firm desire that Directive No. 15 mandate be funded and

that Americans will be educated about this change in racial identity policy, that multiracial Americans clearly understand how they

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can and why they should, after centuries of oppression, express

their racial truths.

I ask you to continue to move us forward from America’s racial

insanity toward truth and sanity by involving multiracials in every

way possible in the census 2000 response campaign.

Specifically, target the multiple checkoff respondents with a sustained, national media message detailing the new policy; involve

leaders of the community in training and sensitizing enumerators

to the historical change; engage multiracial leadership in local public relation campaigns, speaking engagements with schools, and

others impacted by the change.

We, in the multiracial community, are a network of all races of

people who are committed and willing to assist with census 2000.

I appreciate this opportunity to share my ideas with you. And I,

along with the multiracial communities’ leadership, thank you for

your willingness and commitment to partnering with us in this period of historical change.

I and the proud, uncounted multiracial people of our country

wish our fellow citizens could be as proud of us as we are of ourselves. Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Ms. Gaddy follows:]

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Mr. MILLER. Thank you.

Ms. Lumm.

STATEMENT OF ESTHER DURAN LUMM, PRESIDENT OF THE

ARIZONA HISPANIC COMMUNITY FORUM

Ms. LUMM. Honorable Carolyn Maloney, Honorable Dan Miller,

Honorable John Shadegg, thank you for the opportunity to address

you in this very important matter: census 2000.

My name is Esther Duran Lumm, president of the Arizona Hispanic Community Forum, an advocacy organization comprised of

seven chapters throughout the State of Arizona. I believe my remarks today reflect the feelings of many people in the Hispanic

community as well as other people of color.

We are deeply, deeply concerned about the undercount’s impact

past census counts have had on children, people of color, American

Indians living on and off reservations, and the economically disadvantaged people living in urban and rural areas. Many Latinos

and African Americans live in areas of the city where accessibility

is extremely difficult if not impossible.

Any community person involved in walking door to door to distribute information—and I speak from experience—can tell you

that you’re fortunate to make contact with 4 out of 10 houses, and

that’s not counting unapproachable homes where Dobermans guard

the gates. The same situation exists for American Indians living on

reservations or widely separated rural areas.

The end result in the past census efforts has been economically

devastating for people of color and other people who are economically disadvantaged.

According to Census Bureau evaluations, the 1990 census excluded at least 2 percent of Phoenix’ residents and 2.4 percent of

the State’s residents, both higher than the net national undercount

of 1.6 percent. These results are devastating and result in our

county and city residents being denied fiscal resources and political

representation.

The undercount rate for Hispanics is a shocking 5 percent and

even more shocking for American Indians living on reservations at

12.2 percent. This trend will continue unless we take steps to make

changes, and we believe the time for that change is with census

2000.

With all due respect, your Honorable Dan Miller’s views on the

fact that the decision of the Supreme Court is final, thank God we

live in America and we have freedom of speech.

We fully support scientific sampling as a method to use in resolving the problem of undercounting and are disappointed and displeased at the decision to disallow scientific sampling for purposes

of apportionment. We agree and believe that scientific sampling

will result in more accurate counts on all levels: national, State,

congressional, and in the census tracts.

Opponents contend that to use scientific sampling will result in

a violation of the Constitution in that it specifically calls for a

physical head count.

While we have the greatest respect for the Constitution of the

United States and believe it is the greatest document ever written

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for governing, we do not believe that the great minds that wrote

it expected the Nation to remain unchanged.

The days are gone when we could count people physically. The

population has grown and the culture with it. We must employ

whatever scientific and technological tools are available to us to ensure fairness to the people.

Other methods to enhance the census procedure include: Recruit

and hire a local work force that represents the multicultural diversity of our city and State; removing legal barriers that prevent lowincome and elderly from applying for census jobs.

Census materials available in multi-languages are crucial to the

success of the census. This needs to be ensured by allocating funds

for hiring staff at questionnaire assistance centers rather than relying on volunteers. For Spanish-speaking people, the forms should

be in bilingual format and advertisement targeted on Spanish language media.

Census promotional materials must be distributed to local community groups in a timely manner, early enough to make an impact, and Congress should expect to provide funds to assist organizations with limited funds in their mission to outreach and educate

the community, publicity, and through special target efforts via the

schools.

Regarding the census taking for American Indians, the preparation of tribal liaison materials should be completed in a manner

that respects culture and promotes a voluntary census.

In conclusion, we urge you to do the right thing. Do not get

caught up in partisan panic.

We have heard so much about family values this decade, yet children were missed more than twice as often as adults. At least 3

percent were not counted. And children of color, again, paid the

price—the highest price.

Seven percent of black children were not counted. Five percent

of Hispanic children were not counted. And 6 percent of American

Indian children were not counted. Did they not lose out on the Federal assistance?

Taking care of children is a priority. Please, let’s put some action

behind the family value concept and do what is fair and just.

Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Ms. Lumm follows:]

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Mr. MILLER. I would like to thank everyone for your comments.

Mr. Shadegg, you have to leave now. Do you have a quick question you would like to ask? Then we’ll let you go, and then we will

proceed.

Mr. SHADEGG. I don’t really believe I do. I think it was an excellent presentation by all three panelists. I know there are some specific questions of Mr. Bourey, and I thought his testimony was very

technical, but the other testimony was very compelling, and I commend you all for testifying today, and I’ll leave the questioning in

your capable hands.

Thank you very much. I apologize. I do have to leave.

Mr. MILLER. Thank you very much for joining us.

Mrs. MALONEY. You added an important dimension to our hearing.

Mr. MILLER. As I said before, the Supreme Court stated—we can

argue sampling and argue sampling. The job is we’ve got to get the

census done. We’re prepared to offer as many resources as we can.

In fact, the Congress appropriated about $200 million more for the

census in the current appropriation bill—in last year’s appropriation bill than the President even asked for.

So we have spoken by giving the resources to the Census Bureau,

more money than they even asked for. My ideas and suggestions

are going to cost money, but we just need to work together to get

the job done.

Members listening to the debate, Thomas Jefferson was involved

in the first census in 1790, and they had their problems. Back in

1790, they had to do it horseback. So instead of arguing sampling,

I think we need to forget about it.

Let me talk to Mr. Bourey about this most post-census local review issue. Where were you in 1990? Were you here, or you were

in Florida?

Mr. BOUREY. I was in Florida in 1990.

Mr. MILLER. OK. Were you familiar with the post-census local review back then?

Mr. BOUREY. Somewhat. I wasn’t directly involved. I’ve also researched some of what went on here.

Mr. MILLER. Well, tell me what happened here in Phoenix in

1990 with the post-census local review.

Mr. BOUREY. Well, the jurisdiction—the city was given housing

count information after the census was conducted. They were then

given, I believe, 15 days, I believe, to be able to address their concerns and provide to the Census Bureau places where there were

undercounts, and the Census Bureau, then, did a review of those.

And from what we have been able to tell, they did not review all

of those, just the top blocks that were missing—the largest number

of housing units. They did come back, then, and do an adjustment

for the housing count, and they adjusted about 3,700 units in this

region.

Mr. MILLER. How many?

Mr. BOUREY. About 3,700.

So there was a significant adjustment if you look at the population. If you consider a housing unit for State and Federal was

about $10,000 per housing unit for the decade, that represents

quite a bit.

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Mr. MILLER. I’m a little baffled about why the Census Bureau

doesn’t want to do that. Money can’t be the problem. We have provided resources.

We spoke to the conference of mayors. The mayors were pretty

upset about it. The mayor of Detroit, I spoke with him afterwards.

He was very critical of the 1990 census in Detroit and how very

much it was needed this time around and the support, and maybe

we can get the support from the mayor here to send a letter to the

President to encourage him and push for legislation for that.

It gets back to trust. That’s part of the issue. You know, one of

the things that we are saying in the front end is to look at the address list, but we want to look at the tail end numbers to do the

audit.

Your statements have visited the problems of working together

with the community on the address list. Is that right?

Mr. BOUREY. Mr. Chairman, committee members, we have received information, not in as timely a fashion as we would like. The

information came in bits of half and half and then file.

We have been surprised—and this is not to lay the blame on the

Census Bureau. We have been surprised at the extent to which the

addresses are not provided—were missing from the file that we

have—from the address file to what we know is out there.

In some cases, in some jurisdictions, it was upwards of more

than 50 percent, the addresses that were missing in some areas.

So it was a very, very significant amount of addresses, so we had

a large concern. We have yet to receive feedback about how they’ve

been incorporated in the file—the address file, so there’s concern

over that, and then they were obviously concerned about overtime.

Mr. MILLER. You have a field update address file. But you say

as much as 50 percent error in some municipalities here?

Mr. BOUREY. Mr. Chairman, yes, more than 50 percent in some

jurisdictions. The addresses, for some reason, are not on the post

office records.

Mr. MILLER. Ms. Gaddy, your organization is MOSAIC. What’s

that stand for? Is that an acronym?

Ms. GADDY. Yes. Multiethnics of Southern Arizona in Celebration.

Mr. MILLER. How long has that group been around?

Ms. GADDY. We’ve been around for about 15 months at this point,

and we have about 30 families and individuals—individuals plus

family memberships.

Mr. MILLER. Is there a national organization?

Ms. GADDY. Yes, there is. It’s the Association of Multiethnic

Americans, and they are headquartered in California.

Mr. MILLER. And you’re part of that nationally. Is that right?

Ms. GADDY. Yes. We’re affiliated with the national organization.

Mr. MILLER. Now, as part of the Census Bureau goes this in

year, you’re reasonably satisfied as far as the forum.

Ms. GADDY. I have not been as involved in the details of what’s

happening with the census. Ramona Douglass is a member of the

Federal 2000 Census Advisory Committee, and I trust that she is

doing her part to make sure that we are getting—she’s having the

input that she wants to have and needs to have for all of us. So

I guess the answer is yes.

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Mr. MILLER. All right. Mrs. Maloney.

Mrs. MALONEY. I join you, Mr. Chairman, in thanking all of the

witnesses for their very moving and excellent testimony. I particularly thought it was important to hear from the Latino community,

which is very, very large here in Arizona, and I would like to ask

you, Ms. Lumm, several questions.

I appreciated your comments and your testimony about how

overcounts do not balance out undercounts. They are different.

They’re apples and oranges. Can you tell us what effect a large

undercount has had on the Hispanic communities of Arizona?

Ms. LUMM. Mainly, it has been economic. They have not been

able to benefit from Federal funds for different types of benefits

that normally are given to them through the schools, Head Start

Programs, these kinds of things.

Because I was told that I would be limited to 5 minutes and did

not realize it was going to be in this change, I did not bring any

specific notes that tell me exactly where those areas were. However, it’s been mainly economic for the Latinos.

Mrs. MALONEY. You think you lost maybe State representation in

the State?

Ms. LUMM. That goes without saying. We were definitely not represented, and that’s why we’re so disappointed to see that the sampling was not being used for the apportionment because we have

had to fight through decades for representation.

And even now, you see the representation in south Phoenix and

in areas where there are heavy populated Latinos, this is the only

place where we’re able to elect officials that are Hispanic because—

it is ludicrous.

For example, I live in a neighborhood right now that’s predominately Republican. It would be a waste of my time and money for

me to try to run in that area. There is no way that I could win.

For one, I didn’t even mention, because it’s just so obvious, the

fact that we are not equally represented. However, the economic

portion has been very devastating also.

Mrs. MALONEY. Given what you know about the issue and the effectiveness of all the coverage and improvement programs that we

talked about and we all support hiring more enumerators, we all

support hiring within the specific culture, in the Indian culture, the

Latino culture, the multiethnical culture in the areas and the language, do you believe that the undercount can be eliminated without the use of scientific methods sampling?

Ms. LUMM. Absolutely not. Because, as I stated when I told you

that I was speaking from experience, I’ve been door to door in the

barrios. It is impossible to get to some of the houses.

In fact, today I spoke with a woman, a friend of mine, that actually took work with a census and went door do door. I asked her,

I said, what do you do when you come to a house that you can’t

go into because there’s a dog or because they won’t answer the

door?

And she said, well, I just skip it.

And basically, this is what’s happening. It is impossible to get

the count. Also between the culture, the mistrust. There is no way.

That’s why the sampling is so very important. That’s why it’s so

crucial because that is the only way we’re going to get represented.

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That’s the only way that we’re going to get fair representation, is

through sampling. This is why we supported it so heavily.

You can add as many people, you can advertise as much as you

want, but in the end, it’s going to have to be sampling that gives

us the proper representation.

Mrs. MALONEY. I quoted earlier from Dr. Barbara Bryant, who

happens to be a Republican and head of the Census Bureau, and

she said when she was the director, they had enough money to hire

all the enumerators they wanted.

Some of them went six times to homes and still could not count

them, that it was then that they appealed to the National Academy

of Sciences—or it was Congress that appealed to them to come forward with a plan that supported modern scientific methods.

And I just want to, for the record, make one correction to my

dear friend and colleague Dan Miller. We disagree on a few things,

but it’s never personal. We have a good personal relationship.

But sampling is different from estimation. We don’t want guessing. Sampling is a scientific method that is supported by every scientific organization and statistical organization. It’s not estimation.

It’s a scientific method. I just want to add that clarification.

I want to ask Mr. Bourey—I know my time’s up. Could I ask him

one brief question?

You know, I appreciate the concerns, and you showed us how the

new construction is jumping all over Arizona and probably growing

much higher than other people. But when—you explained that

some of the governments are not participating in the review program, which is the prefinal where the local governments work with

the census on the address list.

So my question is and we know that the last time we had local

review it only added—124,000 people were added as a result of this

procedure, and 46 percent were in the cities of Detroit and Cleveland, so that’s about 80,000 housing units, and that’s less than onetenth of 1 percent.

So the Census Bureau said let’s not wait until the end. Let’s, before the end, try to involve a partnership. And so they came up

with the local review, and they involved a partnership and doing

address lists and working together.

But my question is, if governments would not participate in the

preperiod, what makes you think that they would participate in the

post census period?

You testified they were not participating in the prepartnership

period. And I was wondering if they wouldn’t participate in the

prepartnership period, why would they participate in the

postpartnership period?

Mr. BOUREY. Chairman Miller, Honorable Maloney, we have relatively good participation in this region through the local process.

We think it’s a very good process, and we’re going to support the

process. And we’re recommending it be extended so there’s continual update to the address file. That is the best way to get a complete file.

I think some communities around the country really have not felt

they had the resources to be able to participate; or maybe they

didn’t know how the program works. They didn’t know, necessarily,

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that it would result in a better address list file that would be more

productive than not.

So I’m not sure why they don’t participate, but we have very,

very good participation here. But there is so much that will happen

between that time and the time of the actual census.

In addition to that, we have no feedback today about how our information we’ve sent to the Census Bureau will or will not be incorporated. In fact, we have seen, many times we have sent information to the Census Bureau, and it has not been incorporated.

There’s a very recent example of that—I don’t think I need to go

through the specifics of that.

We don’t know what’s going to be included and what’s not going

to be included in an address file. So that’s why it’s incredibly important for us to be able to have the opportunity to provide that

information after.

I think the history behind it is that there has been post census

local reviews, so because of that and because of the finality of it,

there will be a number of communities participating.

I don’t really believe the adjustment was as full as it might have

been in the last census, because as I learn more about what the

Census Bureau actually did to make the adjustments, I could see

why the adjustment wasn’t accurate.

They didn’t use all the information they were sent. They overlooked, as I understand, 5 percent of the information that was sent.

We’re still learning more about exactly how it was conducted so we

can offer suggestions on that.

Mrs. MALONEY. I will join, and I’m sure the chairman will join

with me, in making sure that we get the information back to you

however the information is incorporated. I’m sure we will be getting back to you, but we will followup on that and make sure you

get that information and the information on the other aspect.

Mr. MILLER. Thank you, very much. Mr. Bourey is on the Advisory Board in Washington, the chairman of the Advisory Board. Is

that right?

Mr. BOUREY. Yes, Mr. Chairman. Our report is due February

19th.

Mr. MILLER. The Advisory Board has recommended the local post

census review. Is that right?

Mr. BOUREY. Yes, your Honor.

Mr. MILLER. Thank you, very much, for your statement. It was

very helpful, and I appreciate that.

And Ms. Gaddy, I want to thank you again for giving us your

statement earlier; appreciate that very much.

Let me thank you—all three of you all.

I need to do a couple of things before we adjourn.

In case there are any additional questions that Members may

have or witnesses may have, I ask that the record remain open for

2 weeks for Members to submit questions to the record and witnesses to submit answers as soon as practical.

Any additional written statements may be entered into the

record within 2 weeks, only with prior approval, without objection.

So I also ask unanimous consent that written and opening statements of all the witnesses be included in the record without objection.

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So on behalf of the committee, I would like to thank everyone

very much for being with us today. We appreciate it. It has been

very worthwhile, and the hearing is adjourned.

[Whereupon, at 4:55 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]

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