[House Hearing, 106 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
OVERSIGHT OF THE 2000 CENSUS: STATUS OF NONRESPONSE FOLLOW-UP AND
CLOSEOUT
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
SUBCOMMITTEE ON THE CENSUS
of the
COMMITTEE ON
GOVERNMENT REFORM
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED SIXTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
JUNE 22, 2000
__________
Serial No. 106-225
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Government Reform
----------
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Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.gpo.gov/congress/house
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COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM
DAN BURTON, Indiana, Chairman
BENJAMIN A. GILMAN, New York HENRY A. WAXMAN, California
CONSTANCE A. MORELLA, Maryland TOM LANTOS, California
CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut ROBERT E. WISE, Jr., West Virginia
ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida MAJOR R. OWENS, New York
JOHN M. McHUGH, New York EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York
STEPHEN HORN, California PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania
JOHN L. MICA, Florida PATSY T. MINK, Hawaii
THOMAS M. DAVIS, Virginia CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York
DAVID M. McINTOSH, Indiana ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, Washington,
MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana DC
JOE SCARBOROUGH, Florida CHAKA FATTAH, Pennsylvania
STEVEN C. LaTOURETTE, Ohio ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland
MARSHALL ``MARK'' SANFORD, South DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio
Carolina ROD R. BLAGOJEVICH, Illinois
BOB BARR, Georgia DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois
DAN MILLER, Florida JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts
ASA HUTCHINSON, Arkansas JIM TURNER, Texas
LEE TERRY, Nebraska THOMAS H. ALLEN, Maine
JUDY BIGGERT, Illinois HAROLD E. FORD, Jr., Tennessee
GREG WALDEN, Oregon JANICE D. SCHAKOWSKY, Illinois
DOUG OSE, California ------
PAUL RYAN, Wisconsin BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont
HELEN CHENOWETH-HAGE, Idaho (Independent)
DAVID VITTER, Louisiana
Kevin Binger, Staff Director
Daniel R. Moll, Deputy Staff Director
David A. Kass, Deputy Counsel and Parliamentarian
Lisa Smith Arafune, Chief Clerk
Phil Schiliro, Minority Staff Director
Subcommittee on the Census
DAN MILLER, Florida, Chairman
THOMAS M. DAVIS, Virginia CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York
PAUL RYAN, Wisconsin DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois
MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana HAROLD E. FORD, Jr., Tennessee
------ ------
Ex Officio
DAN BURTON, Indiana HENRY A. WAXMAN, California
Jane Cobb, Staff Director
Vaughn Kirk, Professional Staff Member
Amy Althoff, Professional Staff Member
Andrew Kavaliunas, Clerk
David McMillen, Minority Counsel
C O N T E N T S
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Page
Hearing held on June 22, 2000.................................... 1
Statement of:
Prewitt, Kenneth, Director, Bureau of the Census............. 21
Letters, statements, etc., submitted for the record by:
Maloney, Hon. Carolyn B., a Representative in Congress from
the State of New York:
Information concerning an impact statement............... 12
Prepared statement of.................................... 16
Miller, Hon. Dan, a Representative in Congress from the State
of Florida:
Pieces of correspondence from Director Prewitt........... 62
Prepared statement of.................................... 5
Prewitt, Kenneth, Director, Bureau of the Census:
Letter dated September 19, 2000.......................... 42
Prepared statement of.................................... 24
Souder, Hon. Mark E., a Representative in Congress from the
State of Indiana, letter dated June 14, 2000............... 55
OVERSIGHT OF THE 2000 CENSUS: STATUS OF NONRESPONSE FOLLOW-UP AND
CLOSEOUT
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THURSDAY, JUNE 22, 2000
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on the Census,
Committee on Government Reform,
Washington, DC.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10 a.m., in
room 2247, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Dan Miller
(chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.
Present: Representatives Miller, Maloney, Davis of
Illinois, and Ford.
Staff present: Jane Cobb, staff director; Chip Walker,
deputy staff director; Vaughn Kirk and Amy Althoff,
professional staff members; Michael Miguel, senior data
analyst; Andrew Kavaliunas, clerk; Michelle Ash, minority
counsel; David McMillen and Mark Stephenson, minority
professional staff members; and Earley Green, minority
assistant clerk.
Mr. Miller. Good morning. A quorum being present, the
subcommittee will come to order.
Last night the subcommittee was notified that the Bureau
had a 3-minute video regarding the census that they would like
to air, and before we get started, I would like to go ahead and
play the videotape for our viewing audience. If you will
proceed.
[Videotape played.]
Mr. Miller. Thank you. It was interesting to see that. It
highlights the successful outreach that has taken place around
the country. Now I will proceed with my opening statement.
The operations of the full enumeration census--as mandated
by the Supreme Court--are coming to a close. Nonresponse
followup, the most complex part of the full enumeration, is
near the end.
The hard work of the enumerators has not gone unnoticed by
this chairman or this Congress. They are to be commended for
their hard work and civic duty in helping to count America.
Some, unfortunately, have paid the ultimate price. They
have paid with their lives. It's the sad reality of such a
large operation. Despite our political wrangling that goes on
here from time to time, make no mistake that we regret any
tragic loss of life to the Census family. I know I speak for
all members of the subcommittee, and the Congress, when I say
that our condolences go out to all of the friends, family and
loved ones of those who have lost their lives in the civic
service of our Nation.
Director Prewitt, you have called the full enumeration the
``Good Census.'' I hope it is the good census. In fact, I hope
it's the better census; but I do have some concerns. My
concerns are that it may prove to be the rushed census. On
numerous occasions in the past couple of weeks, concerned
Census Bureau employees, some at the managerial level, have
contacted my office. They were all concerned with one point--
quality.
They all expressed a feeling of tremendous pressure to
finish ahead of schedule. There is nothing fundamentally wrong
with finishing ahead of schedule as long as quality isn't being
sacrificed. One local Census office manager, currently
employed, said the pressure was too great from the regional
office; that the regions were in such fierce competition with
each other that it was putting unwarranted pressure on the
local Census offices.
In your testimony you spoke of a June 15 internal deadline
cutoff date for nonresponse followup. An internal date of June
15 gives me concern for the following reasons. In interviews
conducted by the subcommittee in the Los Angeles Region, we
found that the regional deadline was June 10. This is almost a
month ahead of the public deadline of July 7 and a week ahead
of the internal headquarters' deadline of June 15. It's easy to
see how this rush to complete the work can spiral out of
control as one region attempts to finish ahead of another. For
the benefit of our viewing audience, let it be known the Census
Bureau has divided the Nation into 12 regions.
Director Prewitt, you have assured us that your enumerators
would take the time necessary to get a complete and accurate
count even if it meant staying in the field beyond July 7. It
doesn't seem to me this is happening.
Unless the undercount has been eliminated, why are people
pulling out of the field before July 7? You are ahead of
schedule and under budget, so why leave the field? We would
expect to hear complaints of rushed enumeration in the closing
days of the nonresponse followup, not weeks before your self-
imposed public deadline.
In Florida, at the Hialeah Census Office, they finished a
nonresponse workload of 82,000 households in 22 days. That is
extraordinarily fast. However, it seemed that no red flags were
raised at the regional level. To the contrary, the workers were
rewarded by being sent to another office that had yet to
complete its workload.
Whistle blowers at this other LCO wrote a letter to
Congresswoman Carrie Meek which resulted in an investigation by
the Inspector General. The IG investigation determined that
there were improper enumerations going on by the Hialeah team.
They also determined that the Hialeah office had all along been
getting third-party interviews far too quickly and clearly
violating Census Bureau procedures. The investigation also
determined that the manager of the Hialeah office had
instructed his enumerator to take shortcuts. The situation was
so bad that there is consideration that the entire Hialeah
workload may need to be redone. It is also my understanding
that so far, no disciplinary action has been taken against this
manager or his immediate supervisors. I hope I am wrong.
None of your quality control procedures caught this
problem--not your area manager or the regional technician. How
many Hialeahs are there? I can tell you that the IG is
concerned about quality and we are concerned about quality. How
many Hialeahs are out there?
According to your records, 46 LCOs completed more than 15
percent of their workload in the 6th week of the nonresponse
followup. Some of them claimed more than 20,000 visits in a
single week. How many of those 46 LCOs cut corners to make the
June deadline?
Last week the Commerce Secretary announced a half-hearted
attempt to remove politics from the census, a regulation that
would give full, unreviewable authority to the Director of the
Census Bureau to decide whether to release the adjusted census
numbers. The announcement would have made more sense coming on
April Fool's Day than in June. The transferring of
decisionmaking authority from the Commerce Secretary to the
Census Bureau Director doesn't make the decision to release
manipulated numbers any more palatable or less political.
Dr. Prewitt you are, after all, a political appointee.
Political appointees are appointed to positions because they
have beliefs that are fundamentally the same as the President's
and could be expected to carry out the President's agenda. As
you have said yourself, unlike, for example, the FBI Director,
you serve at the pleasure of the President. Are we to believe
that this President and the Commerce Secretary put forth a
candidate that didn't support their positions on the use of
adjusted numbers? Need I remind everyone that Secretary Daley
is leaving the Commerce Department to help Al Gore's failing
Presidential campaign? This decision was political from the
very beginning.
This proposed regulation isn't about accuracy and
nonpartisanship. It's about Presidential politics. It's all
about trying to raise the stakes for Governor Bush. My
colleague from New York called it ``a Kodak moment.'' what
amazed me about that quote was her candor in acknowledging that
the next President would, in fact, be Governor Bush. These are
desperate times for my Democratic colleagues, so it
doesn't surprise me that they would attempt to stack the deck
before Inauguration Day.
This proposed regulation is fundamentally flawed. In fact,
I have here with me a legal opinion from the Congressional
Research Service that states the following, ``although the
Secretary may delegate the tasks associated with the decision
to the Director, Congress delegated the authority to him and he
cannot purport to divest himself of the decisionmaking
authority and responsibility.''
What you're trying to do is usurp the authority of
Congress--to violate the law, plain and simple. Of course this
isn't the first time that this administration has attempted to
violate the law regarding the census, and I suspect it won't be
the last.
Is there nothing this administration won't do to get the
illegal census it wants? And go through all this effort to have
your final plan thrown out of the courts anyway? It really is
quite amazing.
Furthermore, I outright reject the notion that the Census
Bureau is capable of carrying out a self-audit. I know that the
employees of the Bureau are sensitive to my comments. But this
isn't a condemnation of their character; rather, a realization
of human nature.
Look at this from a business model. I am sure many people
in here own stock in a corporation, and when you look to
analyze the financial health or the chances of success of a new
business venture for that same corporation, where do you look?
You look to an independent auditor or independent analyst.
Well, the American people are the shareholders and the Census
Bureau is your corporation. A self-audit is simply an
unacceptable business practice. Director Prewitt, surrounding
yourself with 13 or 30 Bureau professionals doesn't get us to
an independent analysis. Many of these people have invested the
past few years of their lives developing this plan. I don't
have confidence that they will get to the brink of fruition of
their arduous labor and objectively pull back if that's what's
needed. No one should be put in that position. And no objective
executive would accept such a self-audit.
Self-audits lead to failure. We need look no further than
what is currently going on at Los Alamos. The Secretary of
Energy rejected an independent security review. He said the
Department was capable of correcting the failures; outsiders
were not needed.
What transpired was a breach of security of such enormous
proportions that we still do not know of all the ramifications.
Self-audits lead to failure.
As you have testified, even the National Academy of
Sciences and other statistical groups and universities will not
have time to analyze the ACE, or the sampling plan, before it
is released to the States. In your opening statement you talk
about this being the most transparent census ever, and you talk
about public scrutiny. What public scrutiny is there going to
be of the adjusted numbers before they are released? I can tell
you, there will be none. No independent review, no specific
study, just a group of Census Bureau insiders advising you.
This is not public scrutiny. It's a whitewash. Any State that
accepts these numbers is playing roulette with their
redistricting programs.
I also firmly believe there is reason to be concerned when
the administration divests itself of the ultimate
responsibility for the certification of these numbers. While I
admire your willingness to take this decision on yourself, this
is a Cabinet-level decision. Someone at the Cabinet level needs
to be responsible for the mess that's going to be caused by
releasing two sets of numbers. This administration, which is
notorious for not taking responsibility for anything that's
bad, must be held accountable in this case to the highest
levels. Not only is the plan put forth by the Secretary a
violation of Federal law, on its face, it doesn't stand up to
reasonable scrutiny.
[The prepared statement of Hon. Dan Miller follows:]
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Mrs. Maloney. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and welcome again,
Dr. Prewitt.
Mr. Chairman, I don't understand what will make you happy.
I get the feeling if they were slow and not fulfilling the
timetable, you would call it a, ``failed census request''
because they were not meeting the deadline. Now that they are
meeting the deadline, you are calling it a rushed census.
I want to say that the census is about people, it is not
about politics. It is about making sure that everyone in
America is counted. I must respond to your political statements
in your opening statement. I certainly do not believe that
Governor Bush will be President, for a number of reasons which
I will not go into, but since we are at a census hearing, I
will go into a census reason, and that reason which I was
referring to is that he will not come forward and say that he
supports adjusting for the undercount, which we know missed 13
million people in 1990, and if we don't adjust for the
undercount we will miss even more.
So for a whole host of reasons which I would love to tell
you about, which would take several hours, I can tell you he is
not going to be President, but one of them is that he will not
count adequately minorities, blacks, Latinos, Asians, American
Indians, and the poor in the rural areas and the urban areas,
which the scientists have told us are undercounted--not the
politicians, the scientists--and we have four independent
reports that tell us that.
First, I want to thank you, Dr. Prewitt, for the tremendous
job I believe you and your staff have done so far. Everything I
have heard and read indicates that the 2000 Census is well on
the way to being a great operational success. Despite the
cautious stance you have taken, I believe that the 2000 Census
may well be the best, fairest and most accurate census ever, a
very fitting way to start the 21st century. It will be that way
not just because of the operational successes we have seen to
date, but ultimately because it incorporates modern scientific
methods into the design.
The census is now in the final weeks of the nonresponse
followup operation. It seems to me to be about 2 weeks ahead of
schedule, but will certainly end on time. This success must be
added to many others, but the two major ones in my opinion--
achieving a 65 percent mail-back response rate, and this
reversed 3 decades of a downward trend in response rate.
Congratulations to you and the Department and all of the
professionals in the field.
Also, recruiting and hiring all of the personnel you needed
to do the massive job you have done, especially during this
time of economic expansion when there is such low unemployment.
I must tell you, I was truly amazed that you were able to hire
so many people on a short time basis for this project.
Mr. Chairman, I am sure that the Director agrees that these
successes would have been next to impossible without the full
funding provided by Congress for the Census 2000 and I commend
you again, Mr. Chairman, for your leadership role in achieving
this. Thank you very, very much.
I also want to strongly commend Secretary Daley for last
week's announcement that he is delegating to the Census Bureau
Director the decision about whether or not to release corrected
numbers next spring. I believe the Secretary has wisely decided
to take the politics out of this decision by leaving it up to
the professionals at the Census Bureau, the professionals with
the statistical and operational expertise to make what is
ultimately a technical, scientific and operational decision,
and to make it in an open and rigorous way in the full light of
day.
I want to note Mr. Ryan's supportive comments and would
hope that more members would speak out and be supportive of
this action, as he has.
I was particularly happy to hear that not only former
Director Richie under President Clinton, and Bryant under
President Bush, supported this action, but also the former
Directors under Nixon and Carter--Census Director Vincent
Barabba who in fact had that authority under President Carter--
all have joined in supporting this decision by Secretary Daley.
I only hope that the rule will go into effect and will be
the process by which the Census makes its decisions next year.
Mr. Chairman, I also believe that the Census Bureau should
be more insulated from political pressures than is currently
the case. I believe from your opening statement that you feel
the same way. The census should be about accuracy and the best
data possible. It should be protected as far as possible from
nonscientific influences.
To further that end, I am drafting legislation and hope to
have it in before Congress before the end of the week which
would require the Census Bureau Director to serve for a defined
term, possibly 5 years. He or she would continue to be
Presidentially appointed and confirmed by the Senate. In this
way, the Director could be protected from any political
influences by Congress or Presidential elections.
I would welcome the chairman's input and cosponsorship of
this legislation. It should truly be bipartisan and it would
achieve a goal that you mentioned, removing the Census
Department completely from politics with a set term.
Frankly, Director Prewitt, if I could figure out a way to
do this, I would make you Director for life. I think you have
done an outstanding job. Thirty percent of your time is
responding to requests from Congress. You are ahead of
schedule. You have done a great job, but I don't think that
your family would approve of that, but you have done a
wonderful job and I thank you.
Although it seems like the decennial is on its way to an
unmitigated success, I have real concerns regarding the funding
for nondecennial activities contained in the Census Bureau
funding in the House version of the Commerce-Justice-State
Appropriations Act. The bill, as drafted, is $51 million below
the administration's request for the census. These cuts could
have a devastating effect on America's ability to produce basic
economic and demographic information, information critical to
Congress as it attempts to address the issues and policy
choices of the 21st century.
Inadequate funding will hinder our Nation's ability to
track our dynamic economy, measures of business economic
activity such as the gross domestic product, the index of
industrial production, the Consumer Price Index, and the
Producer Price Index, measures of population economic well-
being such as employment and unemployment, health insurance
coverage, employment of the disabled, and child care.
I would ask unanimous consent that we put into the record a
fact sheet prepared by the Census which outlines these problems
and what would happen with this lack of funding.
[The information referred to follows:]
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Mrs. Maloney. I was particularly distressed to hear that
funding to fix the working conditions at Suitland with a
building that seems prone to floods, asbestos, bad water and
pigeon problems, that desperately needs renovation, was not
included in the budget request. As I am sure the chairman will
agree, the $5 million request for the American community survey
is a truly serious problem if we are going to look for
alternatives to the long form that was so controversial a few
weeks ago.
I ask, Mr. Chairman, that you join with me in expressing
concern about this level of funding. I hope that these cuts can
be rescinded before we get to a final bill and will urge my
colleagues to do what they can to that end.
In conclusion, while I get the feeling we are going to hear
today, in excoriating detail, some of the problems that have
risen in the census, as well as we should, no one can dispute
that even a few months ago the idea that we would be almost
done with nonresponse followup ahead of schedule is a truly
amazing result. And not only the career staff but the thousands
of Americans who worked in the census and cooperated with the
census, who answered their Nation's call, should be commended.
We have all heard the stories of hard work and dedication
of the staff and even, regrettably, the stories of individual
Americans who have in essence died in the line of duty, without
whose efforts we could not be looking at such a good census.
I would like to close by paying tribute to Ms. Dorothy
Stewart, a 71-year-old census taker who died under tragic
circumstances on June 10. My deepest condolences go to her
family and friends, and I am sure that every Member of Congress
joins me in expressing our sadness. Thank you very much.
Director Prewitt, I look forward to your comments.
[The prepared statement of Hon. Carolyn B. Maloney
follows:]
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Mr. Miller. Mr. Davis.
Mr. Davis of Illinois. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman,
let me first of all commend you for holding this hearing to
examine the status of nonresponse followup and closeout
procedures. I would also like to thank Dr. Prewitt for taking
his time to come and share with us today regarding the progress
of the 2000 census. It also provides me an opportunity to
commend the Census Bureau's work thus far, including the
leadership provided by the Secretary of Commerce who has gone
to work directly for the next President of the United States.
It is good news for America that 98 percent of the
nonresponse followup workload has indeed been completed. As the
Census Bureau is entering the final phases of its work, I am
interested to hear how the Bureau is handling the closeout
procedures for nonresponse followup and other current
operations.
In addition, I am also interested to hear challenges that
are facing the Bureau in securing an accurate count of the
population. As we all know, census data are crucial for
America. Census data will be used to determine future funding
for schools, hospitals, road construction and other programs
that will affect local communities. In addition, this data will
be used for congressional apportionment and to determine
boundaries for State legislative and congressional districts.
Thus, accurate census data is crucial for an equal and
prosperous America. I have been close to the process,
especially in Chicago, and I am concerned about Chicago. It is
my understanding that we had been trailing behind the national
average of census responses initially. However, I am pleased to
note that with cooperation of the local census centers, the
mayor of Chicago, and elected officials and community leaders,
there has been a tremendous improvement and great change.
However, even as that improvement has occurred, it has
reinforced for me that it is impossible to get an accurate
account without some numerical adjustment of the numbers. I
have seen instances, Mr. Director, as you know, where every
effort has been put forth in certain kinds of communities and
certain kinds of neighborhoods, and yet after all is done, they
are still individuals who either refused to complete the form
or individuals who, no matter how many times you go looking for
them, they cannot be found. These are the individuals who in
many instances have the greatest need of the resources that
would be allocated on the basis of the numbers.
And so this effort has heightened for me the reality that
unless there is adjustment, there can be no absolute fairness.
We need to have a complete count of Chicago and all of America.
There is still much work to be done, so I look forward to
hearing the comments from Dr. Prewitt as we look at especially
how we are making absolutely certain that those individuals who
reside in areas of high poverty, areas with high immigrant
populations, areas with large numbers of people who are
homeless, helpless and hopeless, people who have become cynical
and have been left out but need to be cut in, I will be
particularly interested in the efforts that we are making to
make sure that this population group is in fact counted.
Again, I thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you, Dr.
Prewitt, for coming and look forward to your testimony.
Mr. Miller. Mr. Ford.
Mr. Ford. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and certainly to Mrs.
Maloney and my colleague Mr. Davis and others. Welcome again,
Director, and I apologize I was not here for your last visit.
I am pleased to announce that we in Tennessee have been
working hard across the State. Our regional office, Ms. Hardy
and others, have cooperated with others across the State. I
have worked with Democrats and Republicans. My colleague, Jimmy
Duncan from the Knoxville area--he, I, and Mayor Victor Ash,
both Republicans, worked closely together, along with members
of their city council and school board and county
commissioners.
I was in Nashville with my colleague, Bob Clement, the
mayor of that great city, Bill Purcell, and we have done things
in my district in Memphis. We believe we are making progress
and hope that our numbers will maintain or continue to be above
the national average.
We applaud the good work that you are doing. I mention that
because the bipartisanship that pervades back in Tennessee, I
would hope that it would pass off a little bit in Washington,
and I would hope at some point that this committee would offer
an apology to you, sir, for attacking your integrity and
suggesting that perhaps there was--not casting aspersions, but
suggesting that you had something to do with something that
happened out in your San Diego office, which all of us have
castigated and suggested that we disagree with, and would hope
and have been assured that that matter has been taken care of.
I look forward to hearing your comments this morning. I
recognize that is the most look-intensive effort of the census
count. I am pleased to hear that we are ahead of schedule and I
am interested to hear what we can do on both sides of the aisle
to assist you. Thank you for cooperating with this committee so
much and coming before this committee at any and all times that
you have been asked. Again, I look forward to hearing your
testimony today and I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. Miller. I don't think anybody was questioning the
integrity of the Director of the Census Bureau with respect to
the California problem. There was a problem in California, but
certainly the Director, I don't think it was ever suggested,
was directly involved or involved with the issue. But there is
a genuine concern in the General Accounting Office which is
investigating it.
Mr. Ford. I do know that passions were high that day and
one could have construed from the news report and accounts that
perhaps the Director--I read the Director's comments, and I
wanted him to be assured that those of us on this side, and I
think I speak for those on the other side as well, certainly
did not mean for that to come across or for anyone to interpret
it that way. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for your comments.
Mr. Miller. Director Prewitt, I think, will acknowledge
that it was not a question of his integrity.
I believe you want Mr. Thompson and Mr. Raines to be sworn
in also if needed.
[Witnesses sworn.]
Mr. Miller. Let the record acknowledge that they have
answered in the affirmative. Director Prewitt, you have an
opening statement.
STATEMENT OF KENNETH PREWITT, DIRECTOR, BUREAU OF THE CENSUS
Mr. Prewitt. Yes, Mr. Chairman. I would like to preface
with a comment about Congresswoman Maloney's suggestion that
perhaps I could be appointed for life. My wife would agree to
that if that would be a bipartisan resolution. So if you can
get the chairman to agree to that, we will proceed.
I do also want to thank you for showing the video because
it does help explain why I believe, at least at this stage, we
have been emboldened to label this a ``good census.'' A good
census is not a perfect census. A good census does not mean
that there are not loose ends, but nevertheless across the
large system that has been the decennial census, we do feel
quite confident about what has been accomplished.
Hiring was a challenge. We hired and retained sufficient
staff to complete every field operation thus far. Paying staff
on time was a challenge. We have had a total of 920,000
different individuals move through the census process in the
last several months, and we have no major complaints about
payroll, and that is a very complicated set of operations to
make happen. Again we are using temporary employees to run a
very complicated system for other temporary employees; 920,000
people moved through our system in the last several months, and
we are pleased that we had no major payroll or administrative
problems.
Obviously, completing every field operation on schedule was
a challenge, but we have completed on or near schedule every
one of our field operations. There was a risk of an
unexpectedly low mail response rate, and we exceeded
expectations.
There were concerns about how well the Census Bureau data
capture systems would work. Again we exceeded expectations.
There was a question about whether the Census Bureau's programs
to provide questionnaire assistance and multiple response
options would work, and they did.
As we entered the nonresponse followup operation 2 months
ago, the Bureau faced its most serious operational challenges.
Would we have enough staff and would they be highly productive?
Would the public cooperate? The great success that the Census
Bureau has had in its nonresponse followup operation is due to
the dedication, enthusiasm and resourcefulness of the census
workers and to the fact that the vast majority of Americans did
step up and do their duty.
Mr. Miller. I think we have a vote on the rule. We can
complete your statement and then recess for a single vote.
Mr. Prewitt. While we are pleased with progress thus far,
there remain several operations that will improve what is
already a good census. I have said numerous times that any
national statistic, including the census count, is an estimate
of the truth. The challenge is to get that estimate as close to
the truth as possible; that is, there is a true count of the
resident population of the United States on April 1, 2000. Were
we to conclude the census with the completion of nonresponse
followup, we would provide an estimate of that true count. It
is unlikely that that estimate would be absolutely accurate;
that is, identical with the true count. We believe that we can
move that estimate closer to the truth. We will continue with
three other major operations.
The coverage edit followup does so by reconciling
population count discrepancies. The coverage improvement
followup operation enumerates housing units added to the
address list too late to have been included in the initial
nonresponse followup operation. We expect to be returning to
nearly 10 percent of the housing units across the country. And
the accuracy and coverage evaluation uses a dual system
estimation in a procedure that measures the number of persons
missed and the number erroneously included in any of the prior
census operations.
Although we are now moving into other field operations in
our local census offices that have completed nonresponse
followup, we are committed to fully applying our procedures to
account for every remaining address in the local census
offices. Daily production levels begin to decrease toward the
end of the nonresponse followup. Some enumerators complete
their easiest cases first, finish the work closer to their
homes first, or believe that the quicker they finish their
assignment, the sooner they will be out of work. In order to
bring the operation to closure within the scheduled 10 weeks,
we look at areas within each local office that are lagging and
we implement the final attempt procedure. When 95 percent of
the workload is completed, final attempt begins and the crew
leader consolidates the remaining work and gives it to the most
productive and dependable enumerators.
In your letter of invitation you asked about serious
problems. With one exception, an LCO in Florida, there are no
serious problems we are aware of across our system. There
obviously are a handful of cases where there are procedural
deviations in nonresponse followup. We are reinterviewing in
those instances. This happens when LCO management does not
follow final attempt procedures as set forth. Our best estimate
at this stage is not less than 50,000 nor more than 100,000
cases will require reinterviewing. That is one-fourth of 1
percent of the nonresponse followup workload, well within any
reasonable tolerance levels of a complicated series of
operations.
The only serious case is Hialeah, FL, along with two other
areas that used enumerators from Hialeah. We are reinterviewing
20 percent of the nonresponse followup workload that was done
by enumerators who, on instruction from the LCO manager,
prematurely collected partial data on households.
You asked how many Hialeahs there are out there, and
obviously we are looking at that and we can talk about that. I
should say that the Hialeah case was directly connected to the
Elian Gonzalez issue, and there are not a lot of Elian
Gonzalezes out there, but we were in a community that was in a
state of uproar when we went into the field. We caught it, and
have corrected it and can talk in detail about it if you wish.
Of course, we are also reevaluating the rest of the work done
in Hialeah. We think that we have found all 100 percent of the
cases that were treated in that abbreviated fashion.
I return to the earlier discussion about what is a good
census. The third element of a good census involves openness,
transparency and public scrutiny, which in turn can lead to
public trust in the process. We believe this has been the most
open and transparent census in history. Every detail has been
and is being scrutinized, and we welcome that scrutiny.
Indeed, as you know, last week I provided at a press
conference and we did make public a document entitled
``Accuracy and Coverage Evaluation'' that does set forth the
rationale of the Census Bureau for a preliminary determination
that corrected data can be produced in the timeframe and
improve the census. At that same press conference, Commerce
Department General Counsel Andrew Pincus described the proposed
regulation to delegate authority.
Just in conclusion, Mr. Chairman, you made reference to the
fact that I was a political appointee. That is true. The
Director of the Census Bureau is a Presidential appointee. So,
Mr. Chairman, is the head of the National Science Foundation
and the NASA. I don't believe, and I doubt that you do, that
there is, therefore, a Republican versus a Democratic way that
NSF funds nanotechnology or particle physics, or NIH conducts
its scientific war on cancer or AIDS, or NASA designs the
exploration of Mars. I don't think that because someone is a
Presidential appointee that makes their activities, therefore,
partisan. And at the Census Bureau we do not think that there
is a way to conduct a Republican versus a Democratic census. We
think that there are simply ways to get the estimate closer to
the truth, and that is what we believe we are about. Thank you.
Mr. Miller. Thank you, Director Prewitt.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Prewitt follows:]
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Mr. Miller. We will take a quick recess and go vote and
come right back.
[Recess.]
Mr. Miller. We will proceed. Before I get started asking
questions, let me respond to a couple of things.
Director Prewitt, you mentioned you are a political
appointee, and there is nothing wrong with that. The head of
the National Institutes of Health is a political appointee, and
Mrs. Maloney and I are politicians.
The concern I have on the proposal which we will talk about
more, is the need for independent outside review, and there is
none that is going to be made or participating in this prior to
the decision in February or March of next year. If you go to
NIH, they have peer reviews and they don't do it all internal.
This is strictly an internal decision process.
Let me also respond to Congressman Davis and Congresswoman
Maloney, the need to count the undercounted. We all agree that
we want to do the very best job that we can, but we are a
Nation of laws, and ultimately we know that this is going to be
decided by the Supreme Court whether we use adjusted numbers.
The sooner we get that decision out of the way, the better off
everybody concerned is.
I feel that the Supreme Court is going to say you cannot
use adjusted numbers for redistricting purposes. The court is
ultimately going to do that. To place your blind faith in
adjusted numbers is unfortunate, because we have to do
everything that we can to get the best count possible this
first full enumeration. That is what I believe that the courts
are going to say that we have to use for redistricting. That is
the reason that I believe we put all of the extra resources
into this.
Let's count the undercounted African Americans and the
rural poor, let's put those resources into that area because,
as I say, and I have said a million times, ultimately the
Supreme Court is going to decide it, and I feel fairly
confident that the court is going to rule for redistricting and
apportioning you are going to have to use the same sets of
numbers, you can't have two sets of numbers.
Who came up with the proposed regulation and did it
originate at the Bureau, the Department of Commerce or
elsewhere?
Mr. Prewitt. I honestly don't know. It was first mentioned
to me, the possibility of it, in a meeting that included myself
and Andy Pincus, and Bill Barron I think was there. I presume
it must have first come from the Commerce Department. As you
recall in my last hearing, Mr. Chairman, I did rather strongly
urge in principle that the authority over census operations be
left at the Census Bureau.
Just to continue with that, you talk about the level at
which this decision should be made. The Census Bureau
constantly releases data. We are going to release the
apportionment numbers without outside review. We have to self-
audit the numbers. There is no other place in the country where
we can say, are these apportionment numbers the right numbers?
It is our job. We do the best we can. I don't understand the
point about the self-audit. What else could an agency do except
do its work and report it in an open and transparent fashion?
Mr. Miller. When you have a new approach that Justice sets
the numbers, you seek outside advice. You sought the National
Academy of Sciences' advice and you had a 2-day meeting in
February. There are distinguished statisticians that are highly
respected people that disagree with this method of adjustment.
There is no outside group looking at this, only after the fact,
will there be. It is all strictly internal at this stage, and
in my opinion a biased decision has already been made. That is,
it hasn't been allowed for public scrutiny. The transparency
that we talk about does not exist because no outside group will
have the data to evaluate it until after the fact, correct?
Mr. Prewitt. Is it your recommendation, then, that we don't
release the apportionment counts until some outside agency
reviews them?
Mr. Miller. The Secretary of Commerce has to release that
data. Do you go to an adjusted set of data which the courts
have ruled is illegal for apportionment purposes? When they
tried it in 1990 it was a failure. If Barbara Bryant had
released them in February 1991, it would have been an
embarrassment to this country. We would have automatically
taken a congressional seat away from Pennsylvania and given it
to another State. It took 2 years to figure out the problems of
1990.
It seems that any nonlawyer can read the proposal, and we
will give you a copy of the CRS--and that is Congressional
Research Service, which is a division of the Library of
Congress. It is not a biased agency or a partisan organization.
It is one that Members of Congress can ask for an unbiased
opinion. But any nonlawyer can read this proposal and realize
that a Cabinet member giving away his authority that is vested
in him by Federal law is illegal.
Who is the lawyer that drafted this? And if you don't know,
perhaps John Thompson can let me know who made this decision,
because I feel it is illegal.
Mr. Prewitt. You are addressing questions to me that should
be addressed to the Department of Commerce.
Mr. Miller. Who is the lawyer?
Mr. Prewitt. I would presume that it is the Department of
Commerce lawyer. We did not produce this document. I would urge
you to talk to Andy Pincus. He is the counsel to the Department
of Commerce.
Mr. Miller. The clearest example of how ridiculous this
proposal is, is that the legal authority cited as the basis for
this proposal refers to the Secretary's ability to delegate
certain decisions. I am sure that he delegates decisions all of
the time, but he is ultimately responsible for the decisions of
all of those under him. Delegating authority is one thing.
Divesting authority is another. It is difficult to believe a
serious lawyer came up with this. This proposal is simply
illegal on its face. This move is also blatantly political.
Secretary Daley announced this proposal and 24 hours later he
leaves to run the Gore campaign. It is clearly an attempt to
try and subvert the will of the majority of Congress and put
presumptive President Bush in a box.
I hope the Bureau and the Commerce Department will come to
their senses and withdraw this ridiculous proposal; otherwise
it is sure to be defeated in the courts.
In your written testimony you state that the third element
of a good census involves openness, transparency and public
scrutiny, which can lead to public trust in the process. You
talk about the importance of public scrutiny, but everything
about this proposed regulation, particularly the notion of an
internal review panel, goes against the notion of public
scrutiny. If you are serious about public scrutiny, why don't
you allow for an independent scientific analysis of the process
before your decision to release adjusted numbers to the States
for redistricting?
Mr. Prewitt. Mr. Chairman, we have statutory deadlines to
meet and we will meet those with respect to the redistricting;
and with respect to the apportionment number we will meet that
deadline. The apportionment number is an adjusted number. There
is a current apportionment number based upon nonresponse
followup. We are now going to do a new operation called
``CIFU.'' We will keep adjusting that number until we get to
the day that----
Mr. Miller. You are counting real people, not virtual
people.
Mr. Prewitt. We don't count virtual people. We count real
people.
Mr. Miller. That is what you do when you adjust.
Mr. Prewitt. That is your language not ours.
Mr. Miller. Statistical sampling, that is creating virtual
people.
Mr. Prewitt. The apportionment number includes imputed
census records, right?
Mr. Miller. I beg your pardon?
Mr. Prewitt. The apportionment numbers includes imputed
census records; that is, people that we have not talked to but
we impute into the census records.
Mr. Miller. But they are identifying an individual, a
specific individual. When you do statistical adjustment, you
are talking about a virtual person. To me there is a
significant difference. You see, when you get a form in the
mail and you fill out that form, those are real people. If you
have to knock on the door and you talk to that person or using
proxy data, you talk to a neighbor, yes, John Jones lived there
on April 1, you are going to create a virtual person in
sampling adjustment. You don't have a name to that person or
identification. You are statistically going to create a person
or eliminate a person. You are going to do both. That is the
way that statistical adjustment works.
Mr. Prewitt. In the apportionment number, there will be a
certain number of census records which are put there through an
imputation process. Those are not people with names. They are
not people who filled out a form. They are people who our
statistical processes lead us to believe by putting that census
record in there, we have given the country a more accurate
number. That is an adjusted number. It is not the basic count
we had after nonresponse followup, because we do lots of work
between now and then. That, we believe, gets that estimate of
the count closer to the truth.
Mr. Miller. It is like a homeless person that you don't
have a name for but you see a physical body.
Mr. Prewitt. I am talking about an imputed census file, not
a homeless person without a name. It is certainly a process of
trying to get the estimate of the count closer to the truth. We
will do that. That is not done with any external scientific
agency. That is done by the Census Bureau because that is our
job.
Mr. Miller. It is different from statistical adjustment
where you use the virtual people.
Mrs. Maloney.
Mrs. Maloney. Mr. Chairman, I have only just seen the legal
memo that you received from CRS, but even from a very brief
reading, the CRS report that I read supports the proposed rule.
On page 2 it says, ``Congress explicitly delegated to the
Secretary of Commerce the authority and responsibility for a
decision concerning the use of sampling and the reporting of
tabulations for redistricting to the States. The Secretary may
delegate such authority to the Director of the Census Bureau.''
The memo goes on to suggest some changes to the language of
the proposed rule, and that of course is why we have a comment
period, and I am sure that the Secretary of Commerce would
welcome your comments and consider your opinions. I would like
to put that on the record.
Director Prewitt, only because the chairman raised the
issue, I would just like to ask you, what would happen if--
which I don't believe is going to happen--G.W. Bush is elected
President, and he then overturns the rule, since he has not
come out in support of correcting for the undercount. What
would the Census Bureau do if that scenario happened?
Mr. Prewitt. I believe the Census Bureau would release the
numbers that we were instructed to release, if so instructed.
My guess is--that is why this conversation about whether it is
political or not political is hard to follow. We presume that
this decision--at least the chairman presumes that this
decision is going to be made by a Republican-appointed
Secretary of Commerce and a Republican-appointed Census Bureau
Director. It is going to take effect post change in
administration.
All the Census Bureau will do in February and March, as it
pours through its data based on everything that it has
accumulated about the census, is say what are the best set of
numbers for Federal funding and redistricting and other
statistical purposes.
They will say to the Census Bureau Director, as I
understand this delegation, ``Mr. Director, Mrs. Director, we
believe these are the best set of numbers that we can produce
from the decennial census process.'' The Director may say
``fine, I take your advice, that is what I am going to do;'' or
he or she can say ``no, I don't take your advice, make a
different decision.'' If he or she is then overruled by his or
her boss, I don't know what the status will be, but the Census
Bureau itself simply does what it can do to produce the best
set of numbers that it can produce in the timeframe available
to it to meet its statutory deadlines and say these are the
numbers.
Mrs. Maloney. Only because the chairman has raised it, I
would like to go into what is a political appointee. A
political appointee is a Presidential appointee. How many
people work at the Census Bureau?
Mr. Prewitt. Well, as I say, right now it goes to half a
million, but the permanent staff is more like 6,000 or 7,000.
Mrs. Maloney. How many of those people out of those 6,000
or 7,000 are Presidential appointees?
Mr. Prewitt. There is one. And three are Schedule C
appointees. I might say of those three, one does
intergovernmental relations, one does public information, and
one does legislative relationships. None of them have anything
to do with any technical decisions made at the Census Bureau. I
am the only person that connects to the technical end of the
Census Bureau who is a political appointee.
Mrs. Maloney. So everyone else is a career civil servant?
Mr. Prewitt. Yes, as a matter of fact.
Mrs. Maloney. So it doesn't matter who is President, they
will be working there because they are career professionals?
Mr. Prewitt. Well, the six people who are the senior people
right behind me, for the most part manage the decennial have
collectively been associated with the Census Bureau for many
years. Their accumulated years at the Census Bureau total about
150 years. If you add the 12 regional directors, they have
about 340 years of experience. So the people actually managing
the decennial census collectively have nearly 500 years of
census experience.
Mrs. Maloney. And they are professionals?
Mr. Prewitt. Yes. Mr. Thompson, who has major authority,
has been here for 25 years. He reports to someone else who has
been here 32 years, who reports to somebody else who has been
in the national statistical system, not the Census Bureau, for
nearly 30 years.
Mrs. Maloney. How were you appointed? Are you a friend of
President Clinton's?
Mr. Prewitt. No, I did not know him.
Mrs. Maloney. Did you work on his campaign?
Mr. Prewitt. No.
Mrs. Maloney. Had you ever met him before you were
appointed?
Mr. Prewitt. No, ma'am.
Mrs. Maloney. Are you even a member of a political club?
Mr. Prewitt. No. I have never been a member of a political
club. It is embarrassing to say these things. I have not been
very active in politics. I have been an academic, and that is
where I have spent my time.
Mrs. Maloney. I consider politics and public service a very
honorable career, especially when it is done wisely, honestly,
and to help people. But your description doesn't sound like a
politician, not even being a member--do you vote?
Mr. Prewitt. I try to vote. I am a good citizen; I will put
it that way.
Mrs. Maloney. How were you appointed if you don't know the
President? How did you get your job, this, ``political job''?
Mr. Prewitt. I was called by someone in the Department of
Commerce and asked if I could recommend any names, and these
were the criteria that they gave to me. They said, we want a
short list of names for the directorship who are reputable
academics, scientists, who are not political. That actually was
the criteria.
Mrs. Maloney. So they were looking for scientists and
academics?
Mr. Prewitt. And I gave five names in the scientific
community that I felt would be a first rate Director. They
said, can we put your name on this list? I said no, I have
never worked for the government and don't intend to work for
the government. They said, would you think about it and call us
back? I mentioned it to my wife and she thought I should do it.
She said, it will keep me younger.
Mrs. Maloney. It has given you more gray hair.
Who called you from the Census Department; and, second,
what was your job when they called you? What were you doing?
Mr. Prewitt. Robert Shapiro made that call. He is and was
Under Secretary. I was president of the Social Science Research
Council based in New York City.
Mrs. Maloney. So you were heading a scientific
organization?
Mr. Prewitt. Yes.
Mrs. Maloney. Had you ever met Secretary Daley?
Mr. Prewitt. No.
Mrs. Maloney. Were you ever interviewed by Secretary Daley?
Mr. Prewitt. At one point in the process, after I met Mr.
Shapiro and Mr. Mallet, I spent 20 minutes with Secretary
Daley, approximately.
Mrs. Maloney. Have you ever met with the President since
you have been appointed?
Mr. Prewitt. I wouldn't call it a meeting, Congresswoman.
Someone at the White House thought I should have a photo op,
and we met in the hall for what I would say was 10 seconds. The
President is--he is a busy man. I do not know for certain that
he knew that he was talking to the Director of the Census
Bureau.
Mrs. Maloney. So you had a 10-seconds photo op, or a 10-
minute photo op?
Mr. Prewitt. I think it was 10 seconds.
Mrs. Maloney. So he is not visiting the Census Bureau or
interacting in any way or whatever?
Mr. Prewitt. No.
Mrs. Maloney. It sounds to me that you are a professional
academic scientist who has been appointed to a position of
tremendous importance in our government.
My time has expired, and I thank the Chairman.
Mr. Miller. Mr. Davis.
Mr. Davis of Illinois. Thank you very much. Dr. Prewitt, I
do believe that academicians can join political clubs. I think
it is quite appropriate.
Mr. Ford. He is from Chicago, I might add.
Mr. Davis of Illinois. In Chicago everybody is political.
You cannot live in Chicago and not be political.
Let me ask you, Dr. Prewitt, since much has been made about
the whole business of the delegation of authority--and this
question is probably outside your realm--but if there was no
Secretary of Commerce, who then would make the decisions about
the operation of the Department?
Mr. Prewitt. I think it would only be the Census Bureau
Director.
Mr. Davis of Illinois. I guess my point is, the Secretary
really didn't have to make his determination before leaving,
and yet a decision would have gotten made at some point anyway?
That is kind of the way that I see that. And so it is difficult
for me to suggest that that would have just simply been a
political decision being made by the Secretary other than to
provide as much assurance as one could provide that the
technical decisions are in fact going to be made by technicians
rather than politicians. But at any rate, you made a statement
at one point relative to statistical corrected data, and
suggested that that would be more accurate. What is statistical
corrected data?
Mr. Prewitt. In a census, Mr. Davis, what we actually
believe is that you can't know the truth. You can only get an
estimate of the truth. So what a census is is nothing more
complicated than a series of operations that constantly try to
get that estimate closer to what the truth is. That is why I
say we currently have an estimate. We have 33,000 more
households to reach in nonresponse followup, 319 in Memphis, by
the way. But we are basically finished. We could produce a
number now. We think we can improve that number by doing these
next big operations. As I say, we are going back out in the
field to some 8 or 10 million households. We will keep trying
to improve that number to get it closer to what we think the
truth is.
One of those operations, only one out of a dozen or--well,
counting three other small ones--is the accuracy and coverage
evaluation. In that operation we do something which has been
described as capture/recapture in wildlife studies. You take
the census record and you go out and reexamine that household
and then you match the records together. What that is, is in
those households that have a set of demographic
characteristics, inner-city, African Americans who rent their
homes and who come from low response rate areas, we have a
sample of those kinds of people in the country and we find out
how many of them we missed. If our calculation is we missed 4
percent of them, then where they live across the country, we
will add 4 percent to the census records, not virtual people,
census records. This is a statistical operation. It's not a
kind of identification-of-people operation. That is all the
correction is.
It also turns out that we overcount. People send in more
than one form and we identify that and we think that it is
extremely important that when we do the corrected file, that
those counts are appropriately reduced because we should not
double-count the social groups in this country.
Mr. Davis of Illinois. Do you believe as I do that if we
were to take our best enumerators, the best people that we have
got, and have them count until the end of the year, that there
still would be some people that we would have missed?
Mr. Prewitt. Regrettably, I have to agree with that. We
have had enumerators met with guns and physically abused. We
have had respondents who have sent us in $100, saying I
understand that is the fine, and I will pay the fine and never
answer this questionnaire. We have people here illegally who do
not want to be counted.
If you read the marvelous series in the New York Times
about the race relations in the United States, you get some
idea of the complexity of the population out there. There are
some population groups who we can't find or will not cooperate
with the census. So we are not--there is no process that could
reach all 275 million, give or take, whatever the quality of
our enumerators are.
Mr. Davis of Illinois. Even though those individuals will
not cooperate, do you feel that it would be unfair to them to
not have them included in the ultimate count?
Mr. Prewitt. Yes, sir; and wrong for the country. If we
know that we are undercounting and overcounting--and we know
that because we have been working on this for 50 years--then to
produce a census that doesn't recognize that strikes us as
failing our responsibilities to the country.
Mr. Davis of Illinois. Again, let me just commend you and
the Bureau for I think the outstanding work that you've done in
even the corrected action that has been taken in some instances
that may have started rather sluggish, but it is not always a
matter of how you start, it is far more important how you
finish. I think that we are going to finish well. Thank you
very much.
Mr. Miller. Let me initially make a comment in response to
Mrs. Maloney. The statement that Secretary Daley released says
the determination of the Director of the Census shall not be
subject to review, reconsideration, or reversal by the
Secretary of Commerce.
The law doesn't give him permission to do that. I know that
we are not lawyers here, I don't know if Mrs. Maloney is, but
that is what the real question is. The ultimate responsibility
has to be there. You need to put the responsibility right at
the level where it belongs.
There is nothing wrong with being a political appointee.
You have a distinguished record, just as Dr. Varmus, who headed
NIH for so many years. It is never a question of whether you
are political, but as political, you end up in--basically the
President or whoever has that power, the Secretary of Commerce
or his assistant, is going to select people for the job that is
going to go along with their beliefs and positions. The concern
is that there is nothing wrong, that is the way that the system
works.
I don't think that you were contacted because you are a
loyal Republican. I don't think that you give financial
contributions to the Republican Party. Do you give political
contributions, or have you?
Mr. Prewitt. Yes, I have.
Mr. Miller. To the Republicans?
Mr. Prewitt. To the best candidate that I can find.
Mr. Miller. Any Republicans?
Mr. Prewitt. Just to make sure that the record is correct,
I have certainly not given any political contributions since I
have had this job.
Mr. Miller. But previously you have made contributions to
the Democratic Party, and there is nothing wrong with that.
Mr. Prewitt. That's correct.
Mr. Miller. You stated last week in a press conference that
there is no bonus system for census employees, and you wanted
to dispel the rumor that there was one. Is there no bonus
system for census employees?
Mr. Prewitt. There is no bonus system connected to the--the
reference that I was making was a bonus system for enumerators
or crew leaders who completed their decennial work on time.
The Census Bureau has incentive and award programs across
its system, and has had that for years and years. But the
particular reference in the press that I saw had to do with a
bonus system for completing work in, I think the Los Angeles
region. We are not allowed by law, for example, to give any
kind of program or payment to any temporary employees.
Mr. Miller. You have seen this recommendation for
recognition, and you have a Special Achievement Award, Special
Act of Service Award, Cash in a Flash Award, On the Spot Award,
Time Off Award. I think bonuses is what makes this system--we
need to have incentives. I am not opposed to them, but the
bottom line is that there are bonuses. You may want to call it
another name, but they are bonuses for getting the job done
right. Isn't that right?
Mr. Prewitt. We call them incentive programs.
Mr. Miller. That is a bonus?
Mr. Prewitt. Surely.
Mr. Miller. We are getting into this Bill Clinton issue,
what is the definition of the word ``is.''
We are rewarding people, and again there is nothing wrong
with that, but the concern we have is to make sure that we are
making the proper balance between timeliness and quality. We
don't want to lose any quality.
Let me go to the question of proxy data. Enumerators
attempt six contacts and if they can't speak to someone in a
household, they go to third-party source such as a neighbor or
postal carrier. This is proxy.
During the 1998 dress rehearsals, the Census Bureau found
very high amounts of proxy in the nonresponse universe: 20
percent in Sacramento, 16.4 percent in South Carolina; 16.5
percent in Menomonie. The Census Bureau concluded the high
amount of proxies was a result of census workers not following
procedures in the field. This directly affects the quality of
the data. How can you or I be confident that the Census Bureau
remedied the problem when you are not measuring proxy data at
the local census office level?
Mr. Prewitt. We certainly will use proxy data in the
decennial census.
Mr. Miller. The question is the level of it. In the dress
rehearsal, it was overused in some areas.
Mr. Prewitt. Proxy data are better than no data. They
simply are. We do everything that we can to get a population
count from every housing unit in the country. If we get that
from a knowledgeable neighbor or building manager, we believe
that is far superior to leaving that census file out of the
census record. So we are not defensive about proxy data at all.
We would prefer to get the response from the respondent. We
would prefer that everyone mail their form back in. They don't.
We would prefer when we knocked on the door, they answered the
door and said ``certainly.''
Mr. Miller. Proxy data is necessary and it is better than
no data. The question is when you get to obtain it. Now that we
have the time that we are ahead of schedule, we should be able
to keep going back to count the people that Mr. Davis and
others say we want counted. I am saying do everything that we
can to get them counted because they are real people, because
the idea of adjustment, it is going to be thrown out probably
and so let's not cut corners now.
Mr. Prewitt. Yes, sir. We have no trouble with that
recommendation and we are not cutting corners, of course.
Mr. Miller. But you are not measuring proxy data at the
local census office--or what level or percentage are you?
Mr. Prewitt. Every questionnaire that we produce has a set
of tags on it. We will report that measure to the country when
we have all of the data.
Mr. Miller. Wouldn't it be important to measure the success
of the local census office?
Mr. Prewitt. We use a number of other indicators that we
think are better.
Mr. Miller. Mr. Ford is back. We will go to Mr. Ford.
Mr. Ford. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I was just trying to
figure out where you were going with the line of questioning.
Perhaps, the bonus piece, what point were you trying to make
with that?
Mr. Miller. My concern is that we are rushing out of the
field too quickly and not getting the best-quality data. I
think bonuses are fine. The question is quality. I say stay in
the field and make sure that we get everybody counted in the
hardest-to-count districts rather than jumping to proxy data.
That is all I am saying. We have to make sure that we are not
overusing proxy data.
Mr. Ford. My second question would be with regard to the
politics of all of this. The concern with this authority being
vested with the--with Director Prewitt--what is the concern? It
is a concern, say, for instance, hypothetically, Mr. Bush is
the next President and is there some concern that his Commerce
Secretary won't have the authority to make this decision. That
is what I am confused with. We have reached a very, very low
point here if we can't take people at their word. The Director
has made clear that his purpose as Director is not to advance
some Democratic agenda but to try to get an accurate count. I
am just curious what we are concerned about. Maybe I am missing
it.
Mr. Miller. There are two comments. First of all you can
delegate authority, but to divest authority is illegal. Going
beyond that, the question is not using independent outside
advice. At Los Alamos we did----
Mr. Ford. This is not Los Alamos, and that is an explosive
term right now. I agree with Senator Byrd and others who have
criticized my friend Bill Richardson.
Mr. Miller. If they want to bring in outside experts, the
National Academy of Sciences, which is a respected institute,
to look at the data and give advice, that is not allowed under
this regulation. This regulation says only the people within
the Bureau inside can make the decision. I think you should
have outside experts give some advice. That is not provided in
this regulation until after the fact it is allowed. That is my
concern, is that the decision process is trying to be set in
concrete now. I am not sure that this is the right decision
process.
Mr. Ford. So it is more that you want to ensure that we get
as many voices----
Mr. Miller. They are setting a rule that only the people
that design the plan will decide the answer. In corporations,
you bring in consultants or auditors. The National Institutes
of Health uses peer review. They don't just have inside people
making the decision. The proposed regulation is all inside
people only, and nobody outside.
Mr. Ford. Is it a regulation that we can address and
perhaps amend?
Mr. Miller. Well, it is a regulation that they are going to
impose at the Commerce Department. We will have a chance for
comment. They are going over Congress's head.
Mr. Ford. I would rather get to the issue as opposed to
talking about definitions of ``is.'' This is not Los Alamos and
this is not an impeachment inquiry here. What is your attitude
toward the thoughts and the concerns that the Chairman has
expressed? I do know that the National Academy of Sciences
suggested that sampling would not be a good idea.
Mrs. Maloney. They supported it.
Mr. Prewitt. Yes.
Mr. Miller. They support the concept, but they have not
reviewed the plan. They will review it after the fact.
Mr. Ford. I only raise that point to say that I understand
that it may support your point at one time, and I wonder if
they would come back and support something that the
administration--since we all believe that politics plays such
an excessive role in all of this. Notwithstanding that, what do
you think about the thoughts that the chairman has said?
Mr. Prewitt. First, the census design has been subjected to
a great deal of outside advice, scrutiny, and consultation with
the statistical community for about 8 years. Four different
committees of the National Academy of Science have been
reviewing our work. This is not something that is being done by
some group of insiders. This is being done with enormous
consultation across the country.
There are some very good statisticians, largely at the
University of California, Berkeley, who have different views.
They incidentally, Mr. Miller, do believe in adjusting but they
would use a raking method which is a different method from
dual-system estimation. We believe that a raking method is less
powerful and statistically robust than dual-system estimation;
but they also understand that there is an undercount, and the
way to fix it is to use a different adjustment method.
So we are arguing about two different kinds of adjustment
methods.
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Mr. Prewitt. Specifically, Mr. Ford, to your comment, in
1980 the Director of the Census was Vince Barabba. He served
under President Nixon and left when President Carter came in.
The decennial census was not in good shape in 1980. He was a
Republican, brought back by a Democratic administration, to run
the decennial census. He made the decision with internal advice
about whether to release the numbers or not. He decided against
it because they were not robust enough.
When I was considering taking this job, I talked to Mr.
Barabba, and I said, ``What advice do you give me?'' He said
the most important advice is get every possible decision out of
the Commerce Department and back to the Census Bureau where it
belongs, and that is a Republican Census Director giving me
advice.
I then talked to Barbara Bryant and said, ``What advice do
you have for me?'' She said, get every decision that you can
get back to the Census Bureau; these decisions are better made
at the Census Bureau. The statistical community will very
substantially support this decision because they believe the
kind of people who should be making this decision are
statisticians and technicians. That is what they believe. If
you want to draw a sample of the statistical community and ask
their judgment, they will all agree this is the right thing to
do. If it turns out to be illegal, it won't happen.
This is not a Census Bureau decision, but it is certainly
one that I strongly support. And it is apolitical. I don't know
who is going to be the Census Director when this decision is
made. I leave with this administration. It is not about me. It
is about the proper way to organize what is a scientific
effort. It is not a political effort. It is a scientific
effort.
Mr. Ford. My concern, Mr. Chairman, I understand the need
to have competition in terms of ideas to generate more ideas
and more thoughts and more voices on this and more opinions,
but what is to stop them from being influenced by politics? We
treat it as if it is a dirty word in some ways, and then we
suggest even outside that we don't want any of it, but we
assume the worst in people.
Whether it is the National Academy of Sciences, are we
going to check that the director or president of that
organization, his or her history of political contributions and
his or her deputy, and then look at--at some point--when does
it stop? When do we just take people at their word? That
Director Prewitt, as much we may differ on some issues, we are
all interested in an accurate count.
There is no doubt that there are implications to an
accurate count. In some areas it is suggested when you are able
to count more minorities--and as an African American Member of
Congress, there is a belief that African Americans vote
Democratic more than Republican, and numbers will probably bear
that out, but I don't know why that should stop us from wanting
an accurate count, just as if we suggest that perhaps white men
vote more Republican and Democrat. I am not urging white men in
my State not to be counted so I can have more African Americans
or women to be counted. I want all folks to be counted, as you
do, too, Mr. Chairman.
When does it stop? I can appreciate the recommendations
that we are going to make, and I would recommend that we
perhaps invite Mr. Prewitt's two predecessors and get their
thoughts as well. I believe that they told you that, but for
the sake of the committee and the record, perhaps we ought to
provide your predecessors an opportunity to make those
statements public.
I know that my time has run out, and I yield back.
Mr. Miller. Mr. Souder. May I have 30 seconds of your time?
Mr. Souder. I am happy to yield.
Mr. Miller. This Congress and the previous Congresses have
given all of the financial resources needed to do the census. I
don't think that anyone disputes that. $6 billion is involved
here. We need to do everything that we can with all of the
resources we have to get the very best count.
I am proud that I have worked hard through my position on
the Appropriations Subcommittee to make sure that money was
there, and this goes back to Speaker Gingrich and Hastert, who
have provided the financial resources. We need to work together
on that common goal.
I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. Souder. I thank the chairman. I apologize for missing
your statement, and I will try to read it in between here and--
I have had kind of an erratic attendance at this subcommittee,
but I was very involved earlier with Speaker Hastert, and I was
involved in the earlier stages, and we have been through a lot
of this.
I share the concern, both a legal-technical concern about
the transfer of authority, and I don't mean to imply direct
questions about the integrity of you as Director or whoever the
new Director is, but I think--and the reason that I move over
to this side, usually the Republicans are on that side, it was
making Mr. Ford very uncomfortable. He is not used to turning
to his left to find me, and he couldn't sort me out.
Mr. Ford. He wasn't used to being on my left either.
Mr. Souder. I think that everybody, regardless of their
political background, tries to do the best they can once they
are given the responsibility in government. But you still come
in with biases, no matter who are you, whether it is me or you
in a given position.
Part of my immediate reaction to a decision like this, and
having been on this oversight committee since I came to
Congress and having dealt with this in agency after agency and
wanting to assume the best about every individual and every
decision, but it is no accident that when you, in the language,
move it to the Department and say this is a professional
decision, that this Department position is still a Schedule C,
it is a political position and it shouldn't be--while you are
more knowledgeable about the issue than the Secretary of
Commerce, you are still a political appointee.
And one concern beyond the legal concern is an impression
given to the general public that somehow if the Director of the
Census makes a statement as opposed to the Congress, that one
is professional and one is political, when in fact we are all
politicians here--you are a representative of a political
appointee of a politically elected official, and you are in the
political arm, with a staff underneath you that is a mix, but
predominantly not politically appointed. At the same time, we
all know, particularly those of us who have been involved in
politics a long time, how we get layers of bureaucracy and
staffing, and how you get promoted and good assignments
internally, and people who share ideas are going to have their
most trusted advisers come with shared ideas. And we have a
major philosophical divide as to the ultimate value in how much
we can trust estimating.
I am sitting in a situation and I have been appalled at the
unwillingness of people to confront directly the difficulty of
what we are facing here, and that we all know it, and we ought
to acknowledge it and try to address this gap.
It is a range of things, but it is not easy to count
illegal immigrants, and it is not easy to count people who are
homeless because they move around. They wouldn't be homeless if
they were organized and were willing to be counted. Drug
dealers do not want to be counted. People who are on the lam
don't want to be counted. Some of my more paranoid right-wing
friends don't want to be counted. There are parts of Montana,
and I don't mean to isolate Montana, but that is the news media
characterization, and we have parts of my district--I had
somebody come up to me at a parade who was worried that the ATF
was going to come after him, and he has two guns pointed and he
is in a trailer; and I am thinking, boy, I hope some census
worker doesn't knock on his door.
We have all kinds of people who don't want to be counted.
We have to figure out how to count them to be fair to
everybody. When you have variations in some cities between
25,000 in the homeless population and 125,000, that
differential in Los Angeles alone wipes out four of my counties
if we estimate at the high as opposed to the low. It is not a
racial argument. It is are my people going to be cheated if
somebody errs on the side of estimating high as opposed to
estimating low.
I know that we have supposedly 125 crack houses in Fort
Wayne that we have--a lot of those have been torn down. It
doesn't mean that somebody is in them. They move from night to
night. That becomes difficult to estimate. And what many of us
want to say is that every exhaustive possibility ought to be
done before any estimating is done. And that even in the bonus
system, in a bonus system the encouragement should be for
exhaustive approaches, not for speed. Assembly line by
stressing speed cannot get as much qualitative level and then
we can jump to the estimating faster. A possible check in a
system like that is a penalty.
If the estimating in your area shows a bigger gap than
somebody in a similar neighborhood, then maybe you should lose
your bonuses that you got earlier by going too fast. Private
business may give commissions and bonuses, but there are
certain things that will suggest the inefficiency of census
workers. That might discourage different activities, too.
I am just suggesting that ultimately we all know there is
going to have to be some supplement and it is a question of how
aggressive it is going to be and whether or not the tilt here--
and where our concern is, is that by transferring this to your
authority, it looks like an attempt of the administration to
wash their hands and say we are going to not be political, and
because we are a little ahead, we are going to kick this to
statistics, a form of sophisticated guessing.
Assuming you have dual tracking and different things, it is
going to be fairly accurate, not necessarily to the sub-track
level, which is important for local things, and maybe we have
ways that we can make sure that everybody understands that.
Another thing, it is kind of ironic at this particular
point in time, the Secretary of Commerce just went over to be
the manager of a Presidential candidate. Isn't that convenient,
because it makes it look like he removed--the time was not
opportune. If you are on the other side of the spectrum, this
looks like the Presidential candidate doesn't want to be
associated in controversial and swing areas with the decision,
and he tried to make it look like he was taking it out and
away, that it didn't matter that Mr. Daley was leaving and
kicking it down.
Yes, sometimes we are a little paranoid on our side, but
some of that paranoia has been fairly justified, not always,
but sometimes. And that is why many of us are upset with this,
not necessarily that we are not going to go to statistical
sampling and you are going to bring a little more trust to the
statistics than some of us would necessarily have, and we want
to make sure that everything else has been exhausted first
because possibly political control of Congress is dependent on
this; variations of whether my district gets grants that may
depend on this, controls of city councils may depend on this.
This is a weighty political decision, and we need to make
sure that both sides are represented fairly and accurate. I
would appreciate any comments that you would have.
Mr. Prewitt. I would like to address the generic level of
your comments.
Mr. Souder, I must say I would be very, very saddened if
this delegation of authority issue became yet a part of--
deepened the sort of concern among Members of Congress that
this is a politically charged census.
I would much rather not have a delegation than have that. I
have spent a lot of time--I came to Washington, quite honestly,
not because I was politically active and so forth, I came to
Washington because I had observed the fact that the Census
Bureau had been characterized as perhaps being able to
predesign a census with a known partisan outcome.
Actually that is a false charge. We would not know how to
do that. If you think, it means 3 years ago we were making
design decisions that would affect redistricting 5 years later,
and redistricting where, and for what purpose, in which States.
The intelligence that one would need to bring to bear on those
technical decisions that you were making 3 years ago for an
impact 5 years later, we don't have it. We are not experts in
redistricting. We don't pay any attention to which Governor of
which State has Republican or Democratic majorities. We simply
don't. We wouldn't know how to go about doing that. I don't
think anyone in this country is smart enough to actually
anticipate the partisan impact back when those design decisions
are made.
And so I felt very strongly that--and let me say just a
word or two why I feel so strongly. I don't think that you can
have a healthy democracy without a healthy number system. The
American people cannot hold political leaders to account
without social indicators. When we debate whether education is
improving or not, when we debate whether the quality of health
is improving or not, and when we worry about whether inflation
is being checked or not, we are using statistical indicators of
those phenomenon.
And when political leaders are thrown out of office, it is
often because the American voting public is saying we don't
like the way things are going. And when they say that, they are
looking at statistical data. Democracy requires a very sound
national number system, and I think if the word gets out and it
gets to be believed that the numbers could be politically
tampered or manipulated, you begin to erode confidence in those
numbers and that is a dangerous place to be for society. I feel
very strongly about that.
I have tried to conduct myself with the Census Bureau staff
in such a way that we could lessen that charge; and therefore
if this particular thing, this delegation becomes evidence, if
you would, that somehow this is one more attempt to be
political, I wish it would go away. I feel so strongly about
trying to take this out of politics that I don't want to do
anything that leaves that impression.
This wasn't my decision. This was a Department of Commerce
decision, and you would have to--but I just want you to believe
that I think nothing is more dangerous than to believe that the
national number system is subjected to political manipulation
or uses.
Mr. Miller. Let's complete the first round. We will go to
Mr. Davis, and then Mrs. Maloney will continue the second
round. We are glad to have Mr. Davis with us today.
Mr. Davis of Virginia. I had a bill in another committee
being marked, and I apologize for being late. My recollection
is that if we had used adjusted numbers after the 1990 census,
we would have been working as a Nation on a foundation of
numbers that contained huge errors, 45 percent errors. That is
huge errors.
Mr. Prewitt. That is incorrect, sir.
Mr. Davis of Virginia. What would it have been?
Mr. Prewitt. This country for the last 7 years has been
making all of its major economic decisions, such as its
inflation rate----
Mr. Davis of Virginia. I am aware of that, but what error?
Mr. Prewitt [continuing]. On the corrected numbers. The
Bureau of Labor Statistics believes if it had not been using
these corrected numbers, it would have mis-estimated employment
rates in this country by more than a million people. The
corrected numbers are better than the uncorrected numbers.
Mr. Miller. The Census Bureau does not use it for any
intercennial estimates. They do not use the adjusted numbers.
My understanding is for the BLS, they only use them for large
population areas, and not for all States. I yield back.
Mr. Davis of Virginia. I appreciate the clarification. Our
paranoia here when we see the head of the Commerce Department
who was overseeing the census, and has now made this delegation
right before moving over to run the national campaign, you can
understand why we are----
Mr. Ford. Would the gentleman yield? You are the chairman
of the National Republican Campaign Committee, so I would not
dare suggest that your questioning is motivated at all by the
fact that you are looking to maintain a majority. I have great
respect for you, but to suggest that----
Mr. Davis of Virginia. Reclaiming my time, I have nothing
to do with the count. I have zero to do with the count over
there. I represent a district out in Fairfax County. Last time,
under their adjusted figures, we would have lost our percent of
the pie in Virginia. So I represent----
Mr. Ford. Mr. Daley said nothing----
Mr. Davis of Virginia. Reclaiming my time, I read today in
Congress Daily that on Monday the Justice Department asked the
Federal court to postpone its consideration of Virginia law, a
Virginia plan that was passed by our State senate and house,
and in fact passed our State house with a bipartisan vote, to
use an actual head count for redrawing legislative districts
next year. Were you or any employees of the Census Bureau
consulted on the Justice Department's decisions?
Mr. Prewitt. Absolutely not. We don't pay any attention to
those things, sir.
Mr. Davis of Virginia. Can you think why anyone would want
to postpone a decision like that?
Mr. Prewitt. There are legal decisions going on all over
the country. I don't pay any attention to those. My job is to
produce the numbers. I can't begin to give you an explanation
for those decisions.
Mr. Davis of Virginia. Can you understand why anyone would
want to postpone a decision like that?
Mr. Prewitt. I am not even knowledgeable about the question
that you are asking me.
Mr. Davis of Virginia. Let me explain it to you and maybe
you can give me an answer. Virginia basically said that they
are going to use the actual enumeration for purposes of drawing
their legislative districts within the State. They passed a law
that was signed by the Governor--duly elected officials
sponsored this--taken to court to try to get an early
clarification, because when it comes to drawing the lines, you
would like to know what is acceptable and what may not be
acceptable, and it sets a playing field. Now the Justice
Department has intervened and said they want to postpone this.
Can you think of any reason why anyone would want to postpone
this?
Mr. Prewitt. No. I am not a lawyer. I don't follow these
things at all.
What the Census Bureau's position has been is that we are
going to produce the best numbers we can. Their use is up to
the States. We don't dictate what States use what numbers. That
is not our job. We are simply producing them.
Mr. Davis of Virginia. If a State wants to get a
clarification of what is legal, you don't have a problem with
that or see why it should be postponed?
Mr. Prewitt. As I say, you have told me more about this
than I had any pre-knowledge about. It has nothing to do with
the Census Bureau. It has to do with the Department of Justice.
Mr. Davis of Virginia. It all has to do with apportionment,
which your numbers--with two different numbers, obviously you
get two different apportionment resolutions.
Mr. Prewitt. You mean redistricting?
Mr. Davis of Virginia. It has been used in the court cases,
I think it has been used interchangeably, but there is an
argument that seems to think that there is a difference between
apportionment and redistricting. You can understand why they
want to get an early decision.
Mr. Prewitt. Certainly.
Mr. Davis of Virginia. Rather than drag this out and
forcing it into next year, the earlier a State could find out
what could be acceptable and maybe bullet-proof from a legal
attack, that would be logical it seems to me.
Mr. Prewitt. I am not disputing that so much as I am
uninformed about it.
Mr. Souder. Would the gentleman yield?
Mr. Davis of Virginia. I would be happy to.
Mr. Souder. You know you are in a politically sensitive
position. We have had hearings for years in advance about the
split between whether we have an accurate enumerated count
versus an estimated count. You know, I assume, that some idea
of the--why there is such a big battle over these figures.
Years ago, legislatures--States don't do counts, so when the
Supreme Court ruled that rural areas were overestimated versus
urban areas, the only numbers that they have to go to are you.
States don't do counts. The Constitution gives it to you. You
have some concept of that history.
Mr. Prewitt. Of course.
Mr. Souder. Therefore, you would understand that even
though they are not required to use these numbers, there are no
other numbers. The courts, when they overrule them, would use
your numbers. So when you say that you don't have an awareness
of how that is done, I understand that you are not necessarily
following it directly, but you have a general idea?
Mr. Prewitt. Yes, sir.
Mr. Davis of Virginia. Also, these are legal matters that
are affected by decisions that you make. You put out two
numbers, what do you expect legislatures to do? I want to
clarify my question again. So no one, no one at the Census
Bureau to your knowledge was consulted by the Justice
Department on this?
Mr. Prewitt. No, sir, not to my knowledge; and I don't know
who it would have been.
Mr. Miller. Mr. Davis, would you yield?
Ultimately this is going to be decided by the Supreme
Court. They are going to rule whether we use adjusted numbers
for redistricting. You don't have an opinion?
Mr. Prewitt. I really don't know.
Mr. Miller. You don't think any courts will rule on this
decision?
Mr. Prewitt. I think courts will rule, yes.
Mr. Miller. Wouldn't it be to everybody's advantage to have
the courts rule sooner than later?
Mr. Prewitt. As I have said in testimony, Mr. Chairman, I
was very pleased with the timeliness of the previous Supreme
Court decision. That helped us in planning this census.
Mr. Miller. So this question of using adjusted numbers for
redistricting, the sooner that the courts rule, the better off
the States will be?
Mr. Prewitt. The difference in the two decisions is that
this decision has nothing to do with our operations. The
previous Supreme Court decision had enormous consequences for
our operation. That is why its timeliness was better, and a
year earlier would have been even better. But this has no
implications for what we are now doing.
Mr. Miller. It has huge implications to States making
redistricting decisions. My knowledge of what I read in
Congress Daily, I am amazed that the Justice Department would
not have put off that decision, and that is what they are
doing. I am glad that you are not involved.
Mr. Davis of Virginia. I am glad that the Census Bureau
isn't. I am appalled by the Justice Department's decision, but
I think it has been very political in every other aspect of how
it has conducted itself. And I think this case shows that once
again, in an election year, it is not going to deviate from
that practice.
Mr. Miller. Mrs. Maloney.
Mrs. Maloney. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I think many of your
colleagues raise some important points. I believe we should
invite the Justice Department to come to the next hearing and
explain their point of view. We should have them tell us and
explain why they feel the way that they do. I think that is a
legitimate point that has been raised, and I look forward to
that hearing only because some of my friends and colleagues on
the other side of the aisle seem to be disturbed, and they keep
raising the point that Secretary Daley will be going over to
join Vice President Gore's campaign.
I want to make a historical note in here that Mosbacher,
the Secretary of Commerce under former President Bush, he
overruled the Census Director, the professional, Dr. Barbara
Bryant, who ruled that adjusted numbers with modern scientific
methods were far more accurate and that those should be the
numbers used. Mosbacher overruled her professional scientific
decision, then resigned and went over and ran the Bush campaign
in 1992.
One point that was raised--quite frankly, I didn't realize
until you mentioned it, Dr. Prewitt, is that adjusted numbers
are being used now by professional statistical organizations
because they are more accurate.
I would like you to respond now, and in greater detail in
writing, which ones are using adjusted numbers because they are
more accurate. But before that, I want to make another point to
one of my dear friends and colleagues who kept raising the
point that many people don't want to be counted. The
Constitution, and all of our directions are that we are
supposed to count everyone, whether they want to be counted or
not.
In my district in New York, the local census office is
having a very difficult time because they can't get past the
doormen, and my office is calling up all of the managers of all
of these buildings and helping the Census Bureau get into
buildings that they have been blocked from going into. But one
of the biggest areas that is undercounted, and actually it is
the reason that I first got involved in the census, because one
of the areas that I work very deeply in is child care, day-
care, and many advocates were coming to me and talking about
the great number of children who were missed and undercounted
in 1990. I believe it was really the largest area of the
undercount. That, as we know, affects all types of planning and
funding formulas.
I would like you to comment on those two points.
Mr. Prewitt. With respect to the undercount of the
children, the odd thing is these are census forms that come
back in, so it is not as if we have not exhausted our
procedures and gone to that household and gotten the census
form. But we subsequently learn that children get left off of
forms for all kinds of reasons. One of the major things that
the corrected numbers do is to locate the percentage of kids
that get left off forms and add that number back to the census.
Nothing more complicated than that.
Mrs. Maloney. I would like to add, in 1990, 70 percent of
the people missed in the census were missed in households that
were counted, and many of these were missed on forms, as you
pointed out, that were returned by mail. And because of the
tremendous amount of work that the Census Bureau has done, and
the local governments, we do have a tremendous improvement in
the address list, and it is likely that the percentage will be
higher in 2000. And will spending more time in the field doing
the nonresponse followup find these people?
Mr. Prewitt. Well, we designed our processes under
scrutiny, of course, of this Congress and the GAO to be prudent
with taxpayer dollars. We could continue to knock on doors
forever. We don't think that would improve the count
materially. That is six attempts. Indeed, we have cases where
we have gone back 12 times. That is more than was expected to
happen. We have very committed enumerators out there.
We do think that at a certain point you get data
deterioration as you move away from April 1, and you get memory
and mover problems. So it is our statistical judgment that the
sooner we can get the data, the better. So it is not a rushed
census, it is a higher-quality census if we get the data closer
to April 1.
Continuing to knock on doors, we have been met at the door
by people with guns, as Mr. Souder knows. We have had physical
and verbal abuse. We don't send people back 12 times when
somebody says, ``You come back, next time it will get worse.''
We have to worry about the safety of the enumeration staff.
Going back for a 12th time will spend a lot more money, and
then you will have a different set of hearings saying, why did
you waste all of that money going back and back?
Mrs. Maloney. GAO produced a report that confirmed what you
are saying, and I would like to put that report in the record.
I would like to know from the chairman if he would consider
having--I know my time is up--the next hearing with the Justice
Department and the Voting Rights Division on why they made this
decision. I think that would be an appropriate hearing for the
Members of Congress and the American public.
Mr. Miller. We are having two hearings in July, one dealing
with the American community survey issue, which gets to the
long form. I think that would be of great interest.
We continue now on the second round, and Mr. Souder is
next.
First, though, Mrs. Maloney was talking about the use of
these adjusted--you use the word ``corrected,'' which is a
political term, and I think it should be ``adjusted'' data.
When you use the aggregate, we average out errors basically.
The problem is that at the block level we have error rates. And
our argument and what the courts are looking at, block level
data--and how many people are in a block? What is the average
size of a block?
Mr. Prewitt. Thirty households.
Mr. Miller. When you adjust a block and you have to add
this virtual person or delete a real person is where you get
the high error rate. And redistricting is done at the block
level. You take away a block there or add a block here, and
that is where you run into errors. The BLS, when you are
talking about the population of the State of California, that
is one thing. But we are talking about redistricting, which is
block level data, and that has a high degree of inaccuracy.
Mr. Souder.
Mr. Souder. I would just like to note for the record, which
I didn't bring up earlier, I want to note for the record that
part of this--first off, whichever party isn't in power in the
executive branch is certainly going to call you up, whether you
spend too much money or less money. That is what oversight is,
by the way.
Part of my frustration has been we are now griping about
the end because--I represent Fort Wayne, IN, and we have had a
continuing battle. We cannot get the maps. The local person was
still complaining just a couple of months ago that they didn't
have the newly annexed maps. We have battled this problem for
roughly 2 years now. We also--and the Chicago director was very
responsive, came down to meet with a lot of my urban pastors
and leaders in the community who were very concerned about an
undercount. And Fort Wayne at 220,000 people, roughly, will
hopefully have a better count, because the only place that they
advertised for census workers were out at two suburban
libraries.
We have this influx--for one thing, I have learned through
the Historic Society, that I have the largest Burmese
population in the United States, and also we do immigration in
our office, and because we have one of the dissident professors
and two of the legislators, we have got this big influx. We
have--I know that we are going to undercount the surge of
Hispanic people in our area because we don't have any census
people out checking them. They should have gone immediately to
the Catholic Church where these people go, but instead were out
in the suburbs. Now we are saying we are going to have to
adjust the count. Well, yeah, if you don't have the right maps
and don't have the right workers, we probably are going to have
to do some adjustments in counts. But understand, that is what
leads to some of our not completely unjustified paranoia that
we are being a little set up, not necessarily on purpose,
because you have a massive thing, and that is what makes some
of us paranoid.
Now, nonresponsiveness, the long form and short form. The
long form is so essential for information, but as somebody who
got the long form--and also I want to praise one other part of
your program. By going into the schools, my son, as I was mad
about getting the long form and complaining about the
questions, my 12-year-old came over and said his teacher said
he was supposed to watch us fill it out. So I had to compromise
my anger as I was going through the long form. I can understand
a lot of people who may not have had their son there at the
moment, or who were even more upset about what they viewed as
intrusiveness, and then it was blown into the media and that
led to other kinds of problems.
But I have a letter that I would like unanimous consent to
insert into the record. It is from Ms. Carol Hugo. It is to
her, a portfolio director, from the regional director, and she
is based in San Jose and it has to do with gated communities.
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Mr. Souder. The line that is in question here--and the code
is cited that says if you are the owner, proprietor,
superintendent, or agent of any lodging facility and you
basically refuse to furnish the names of occupants--but the--or
give free ingress and egress therefrom. But the line that is in
question is, ``We anticipate that you will provide our census
enumerators access to the apartment complexes and information
to substantiate occupancy status as of April 1.''
That led many of these types of communities to feel that
that was an information request beyond access, because it
potentially puts them into other information. And for those
who, rightfully or wrongfully, are very concerned about
government having all kinds of access to information, has
opened up another can of worms and then led to information
going around. Is this official policy that this can be
requested; and if so, on what in the code?
Mr. Prewitt. I want to make certain that I give you a good
answer on this, so I may want to write you afterwards. It
certainly was not our intent to try to get Title 13, that is
confidential data, in this manner. We have apartment
complexes--I visited one the other day, for example--where we
had not gotten a response from unit 101, 102, 103 and then 201,
202 and then 306. And I went with the enumerator and we went to
that apartment complex. Well, 101, 102, and 103 were storage
bins. They look like addresses, but they were storage bins. My
guess is that is what this intends to identify: Are there any
units which are not inhabitable units? But if it is more than
that, I will get back to you. I prefer not to give you a
complicated explanation. We protect the confidentiality every
step of the way.
Mr. Souder. Even if that is the intent, I would suggest
that this type of wording scares people and leads to a lot of
problems and then leads to nonresponse and leads us back into
estimating.
If I can ask unanimous consent to ask one additional
question. I had a questionnaire come both to my house in
Indiana and to my apartment in Virginia, and then had a person
knock on the door, and I took the time then to call back to
tell that person I can't be counted both places. But it led me
to just wonder about another thing: Would I have been estimated
and adjusted? How would you have known that I was a Congressman
and had already been counted?
Mr. Prewitt. The housing unit of the apartment would have
been coded, like seasonal housing. I presume you responded at
your home. Lots of people have two or three houses. The form
comes back, ticked off ``seasonal housing.''
Mr. Souder. How do you know it is seasonal?
Mr. Prewitt. That is a code that we use. You have two
homes. One is your primary residence. You are counted there.
Your second home will be taken off of the master address file.
That is this huge operation that we are about to go into the
field now to cross-check.
Mr. Souder. You cross-check actual names?
Mr. Prewitt. We actually go back to all of those housing
units and try to determine what their unit status is. That is
our job. Sometimes we ask building managers and they will say
that is somebody who primarily lives somewhere else; that is a
vacation home, and that becomes ticked off that way. That is
the operation that we are about to engage in.
Mr. Ford. What if he sent back both of them? How do you
know which is primary and which is seasonal?
Mr. Prewitt. If they both came back in, he decided to break
the law, we wouldn't find them. We can't match a response that
comes in from Fort Wayne and a response that comes in from
Virginia. That would be a fraudulent response.
Actually, the accuracy and coverage evaluation system would
find instances of that case, and we would then estimate the
total number of those cases. That is what creates the
overcount, people sending in forms in from more than one house.
Mr. Souder. There is no way--let me just have a second.
There is no way for anybody to identify that I am seasonal
because I pay, regularly, monthly rent. My apartment is in an
urban area in Arlington. I am wondering if after several
visits--and they can't even find me. If I had not called back
because I happened to one-time check my phone messages, because
we are here late, I commute back and forth, and I know in this
particular complex there are people who are lobbyists who will
come in. Their company may have an apartment under their name,
and I am wondering how those people--would they be estimated
based on the number of people in the apartment? How would you
pick up the fact that--the difference between me and somebody
who wasn't responding?
Mr. Prewitt. What the accuracy and coverage evaluation is,
it goes to 314,000 housing units across the country. We use an
instrument which probes and probes and probes. We will go back
to a sample of those kinds of units. That is a sample, and we
will probe until we are certain what the characteristic of that
household is. If the characteristic of that household is
somebody who has a primary residence somewhere else, that is
what the statistical adjustment handles. That is what the whole
purpose is.
We think that it is a superior way than just leaving both
of those records sitting there. As I go back to my opening
statement: A census is a series of operations that tries to get
what is necessarily an estimate, closer to the truth. If we
stop the census today, we would have an estimate. We think by
additional operations we can move that estimate closer. We do
not think that we can get to perfection. We do not think that
we can get to the identical number of people who live in this
country on April 1, 2000. It is an impractical kind of goal. So
we say how close can we get the estimate to that truth.
Mr. Souder, back on the political thing, if I can, sir, I
have thought, read about, written about, feel very strongly
about the way in which the decennial census has been caught up
in a partisan battle. So I don't mean to suggest that I am not
paying attention to that as an academic.
I have written an essay recently which tries to recommend
ways to get out of that. It is counterintuitive. I don't think
that you will get out of it to get the Census Bureau removed
from politics. I think we can get the data collection removed
from politics, but the application of the data will necessarily
be political and legal.
What I am concerned about is the politics are now about how
we collect data, not how we use data, and that is what is not
good for a society. We have to be able to collect the data in
as nonpartisan, independent fashion as possible, and then use
the data in the political-legal process. The Census Bureau is
comfortable with that. We want to collect the data using the
best statistics that we know how to collect.
Mr. Souder. What is extraordinary about the debate is you
have a subcommittee chairman who is actually a statistician, a
mathematician. I am a business person, undergraduate and
graduate. I have taken many statistics and operations research
courses, done marketing research, and we are enamored with
statistics. Tom has studied statistics of every district in the
country. The irony is you have arguably on our side more people
who are fascinated with statistics than sometimes on the other
side. Ultimately, this is really a political debate of how
statistics are used. Figures lie, liars figure; it is the
colloquialism. And that is what we have to watch doesn't
happen.
Mr. Miller. Mr. Ford.
Mr. Ford. The only way I think we can do what you've said
is if we import Martians here, who have no political history
and no history of making contributions to anyone.
Briefly, how does your overall workload compare to perhaps
the last two or three censuses, your overall performance and
operations?
Mr. Prewitt. Every major operation has been superior to
those in 1980 and 1990. Does that mean perfection? No. But we
are ahead of schedule.
Mr. Ford. I congratulate you, and we hope that you continue
your good work.
I would make the point again about politics. I don't know
how we avoid it. Mr. Davis, you are my friend; I would not cast
aspersions on any of your questions or motivations. The fact
that you are chairman of a committee whose primary purpose is
to maintain the majority for your party in the Congress, I
respect that.
I have a chairman on my side, Patrick Kennedy, and I know
that you and he have a good personal relationship, although you
disagree philosophically. I take you at your word when you say
certain things. I could only hope that you would accord my side
the same courtesy.
And to my friend, Mr. Souder, true, there may be folks on
your side who have greater interest and experience in
statistics, more so perhaps than our side; I don't know,
perhaps you have studied this. But, I don't think that gives
you any more right--I may say we have visited more schools than
you guys, so we are better experts on education than you are. I
wouldn't dare say that. But I would hope that the politics of
this, we could divorce it, and perhaps it is impossible to do
that and we should just say that.
I do find it interesting that the only people today talking
about politics incessantly have been us. He hasn't mentioned
it. Every question that we have raised with him, he has denied
having any political biases or prejudices, and I understand
that people bring that to any debate. But to suggest that he
should have an answer to a decision made by the Department of
Justice, I think is somewhat asinine.
I don't know why we would question him and almost badger
him as to what his thoughts are, what he would have us do. No
one accused the Conference Committee on Managed Care Reform of
waiting for the Supreme Court to make a decision on whether you
can sue HMOs. I would not dare do that. The court has spoken.
We would have as many political reasons on this side to say
look, you are holding this up because you want the court to
decide, and the majority of the court is Republican appointees.
They are going to follow the Republican law and we will get a
conference committee report that will favor Republicans. No one
would dare suggest that.
I hope at some point that we can cease this, and perhaps it
will take an election to do this, and the people will have an
opportunity to speak.
We appreciate, Mr. Prewitt, the work that you and your
staff have done here and across the country. I salute the
regional director that covers the State of Tennessee, Sue
Hardy, and others. You have done a great job in the face of
withering attacks from us, oftentimes unjustified and sometimes
justified, and I would hope that we can give you the support
that you need to finish this job, and I will work closely with
Mrs. Maloney. And I must say, she has been a stalwart and a
warrior on our side ensuring funding has been there. I want to
thank her and say, Mr. Prewitt, go back to work. We have called
you before this committee too many doggone times. Get us an
accurate count so we can put aside all of this talk about
politics, apportioning and redistricting, and Mr. Kennedy and
Mr. Davis can go at it and we can see what happens in November.
With that, I yield back.
Mr. Miller. Mr. Davis.
Mr. Davis of Virginia. I wanted to ask you on this final
attempt, a lot of attention is being paid to the pace with
which the Bureau is completing its nonresponse followup
workload and I think you have reported the nonresponse followup
is completed ahead of schedule in many cases, with no problems
in staffing. Many offices report that they have come in under
budget. I think that is great.
But I want to understand--the most difficult to count are
in the last 5 percent of the nonresponse followup--yet counting
this last 5 percent, the final attempt procedures where we are
saying that we--all final attempts must be completed in a
matter of 3 to 4 days. What is the thinking behind that?
Mr. Prewitt. What happens, Mr. Davis, when we get to a
certain point, we just say roughly 95 percent of an area, every
case gets the same treatment. That is, every case gets the full
complement. And what the final attempt is is an organizational
way to get all of the cases in the hands of your best
enumerators. So we let a lot of the enumerators go at that
stage. We are down to the last few hard cases, and we reassign
the workload. And then we use a blitz strategy, because our
experience over the years suggests if we blitz it and go after
it, we will get more of those cases in.
After that we go into closeout procedures, and that is a
different procedure after that. But every household gets all of
those visits. At a certain point you do quit trying, because
you have been there and been there and been there. I have had
people tell me, I am not going to answer this questionnaire. We
then go to other mechanisms to try to get the household count.
Mr. Miller. I think we need to end to get to the vote. I
think it is very important for this process that you have come
forward monthly. It is not always the highlight of your day or
week.
Mr. Prewitt. I do hope that this subcommittee has a hearing
sometime this fall, whenever, that addresses the big question
of how to get the decennial census out of the political
environment. I think that is very, very important. And it has
not to do with these immediate operations, it has to do with
the larger health of the Nation's statistical system.
Mr. Miller. I ask unanimous consent that all Members and
witness's opening statements be included in the record. Without
objection, so ordered.
I would like to enter several pieces of correspondence from
Director Prewitt to me regarding census operations. Without
objection, so ordered. As well as CRS legal analysis of the
proposed regulations.
[The information referred to follows:]
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Mr. Miller. If there are additional questions from our
members, I ask unanimous consent that the record remain open
for 2 weeks for members to submit questions for the record.
Thank you again, Director Prewitt.
[Whereupon, at 12:45 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]
[Additional information submitted for the hearing record
follows:]
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