The Census
The Director of the Census must fully explore, in a nonpartisan and scientific fashion, the feasibility and accuracy of releasing sampling-based census numbers for purposes of determining redistricting within states, allocating federal funds, and other permitted purposes.
The Constitution requires a national census every ten years. The paramount goal is an accurate and complete population count. Unfortunately, the Nation has regularly failed to achieve this goal. Our increasing population means that although the "undercount" has declined as a percentage of the total U.S. population, the number of Americans not counted has grown. In 1990, approximately four million Americans — the majority of whom were African-Americans and other minorities — were not counted. Census bureau officials report that in Texas alone the 1990 census missed approximately 220,000 Hispanics and 83,000 African Americans. The raw census tally resulted in the exclusion of 63,000 Asian-Americans in California and over 23,000 in New York.
The federal government uses census figures to allocate over $180 billion in federal grants to states for, among other things, education, highway construction, health programs, and crime prevention. States also use census figures to allot money within their borders, including monies for direct government services. To the extent that the census undercounts minority populations, it reduces the federal funds available to those States in which the undercounted minorities live and perpetuates the chronic shortage of government services available to populations that are disproportionately low-income.
A census undercount also affects minority voting rights, because census figures are used in the redistricting process. The Voting Rights Act prohibits efforts by state or local governments to draw electoral boundaries with the intention of diluting the concentration of minority voters, yet census undercounting has that very effect. For example, it is estimated that the 1990 census undercounted 300,000 residents of New York City; nearly half of the undercounted were African-American, Hispanic and Asian-American. This failure to recognize local concentrations of minority groups hampers redistricting authorities seeking to comply with the VRA.
The National Academy of Sciences has found statistical sampling to be a valid means of reducing the census undercount to an acceptable level. Although the Supreme Court has foreclosed the use of statistical sampling for purposes of apportioning congressional seats between states, it has not precluded its use for purpose of congressional redistricting within states for e.g., allocation of federal funds or for myriad other purposes for which census figures are used. U.S. Dept. of Commerce v. U.S. House of Representatives, 525 U.S. 316 (1999).
The Department of Commerce has decided to release unadjusted census data to the states for redistricting purposes. In making this decision, the Department acted on the recommendation of a committee of Census Bureau officials. While this panel concluded that it could not recommend the release of adjusted data until it had conducted further research and evaluation of Prepared by the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights the data, it also noted that there is evidence of the accuracy of adjusted census data and of the continued existence of a differential undercount of the population. We urge the Census Bureau to complete its analysis of the census results and to release the adjusted census data. We also urge the President to support these efforts.
