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Union Calendar No. 53
106TH CONGRESS
1ST SESSION
H. R. 929
[Report No. 106–96]
To amend title 13, United States Code, to require that the questionnaire
used in taking the 2000 decennial census be made available in certain
languages besides English.
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
MARCH 2, 1999
Mr. MILLER of Florida (for himself, Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin, Mr. DAVIS of
Virginia, and Mr. SOUDER) introduced the following bill; which was re-
ferred to the Committee on Government Reform
APRIL 19, 1999
Committed to the Committee of the Whole House on the State of the Union
and ordered to be printed
A BILL
To amend title 13, United States Code, to require that
the questionnaire used in taking the 2000 decennial cen-
sus be made available in certain languages besides
English.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa-
tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
This Act may be cited as the ‘‘2000 Census Language
Barrier Removal Act’’.
SEC. 2. REQUIREMENT.
(a) IN GENERAL.—Subchapter I of chapter 1 of title
13, United States Code, is amended by adding at the end
the following:
‘‘§ 17. Requirement relating to census questionnaires
‘‘(a) The Secretary shall design and carry out a pro-
gram under which—
‘‘(1) the short form used in taking the 2000 de-
cennial census shall, in addition to being printed in
English, be prepared in each of the alternative
versions described in subsection (b);
‘‘(2) upon request, a household shall, instead of
receiving the printed English version of that short
form, be sent the alternative version (described in
subsection (b)) specified in its request; and
‘‘(3) those alternative versions shall otherwise
be made available to the public in such manner as
will, in the judgment of the Secretary, most effec-
tively enhance response rates in the 2000 decennial
census.
‘‘(b) The versions described in this subsection are Ar-
abic, Armenian, Bengali, Cambodian, Chinese, Creole,
Czech, Dutch, Farsi, French, German, Greek, Hindi,
Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Lao, Latvian,
Lithuanian, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian,
Russian, Samoan, Serbo-Croatian, Spanish, Tagalog,
Thai, Ukrainian, Vietnamese, Yiddish, and such other lan-
guages as the Secretary considers appropriate, as well as
braille (for at least English).
‘‘(c) For purposes of this Act—
‘‘(1) the term ‘decennial census’ means a decen-
nial census of population conducted under section
141(a); and
‘‘(2) the term ‘short form’ refers to the short
form of the questionnaire used in taking a decennial
census.’’.
(b) TECHNICAL AND CONFORMING AMENDMENTS.—
(1) Section 5 of title 13, United States Code, is amended
by striking ‘‘title.’’ and inserting ‘‘title, subject to section
17.’’.
(2) The table of sections for subchapter I of chapter
1 of title 13, United States Code, is amended by adding
after the item relating to section 16 the following:
‘‘17. Requirement relating to census questionnaires.’’.
Union Calendar No. 53
106TH CONGRESS
1ST SESSION
H. R. 929
[Report No. 106–96]
A BILL
To amend title 13, United States Code, to require
that the questionnaire used in taking the 2000
decennial census be made available in certain
languages besides English.
APRIL 19, 1999
Committed to the Committee of the Whole House on the
State of the Union and ordered to be printed