[CTPP] CENSUS NEWS BRIEF (Feb 23, 2009)

[Ed Christopher]

STIMULUS PACKAGE BOOSTS 2010 CENSUS FUNDS BY $1 BILLION;
FOCUS TURNS TO FY09 & FY10 BUDGETS
Plus: Commerce Secretary Nominee and Leading
Contender for Census Director Withdraw; and more.

The “American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009” (Public Law 111-5) 
that President Obama signed into law on February 17 includes $1 billion 
to “ensure a successful 2010 Decennial” census, according to the 
explanation accompanying the compromise package.  The final measure 
omitted language in the Senate-passed version of the bill that would 
have required the Census Bureau to spend the funds by the end of fiscal 
year 2010, several months before the census is finished.

Report language explaining the $789 billion conference bill (House 
Report 111-16) says that the $1 billion should be used to “hire 
additional personnel, provide required training, increase targeted media 
purchases, and improve management of other operational and programmatic 
risks.”  Appropriators directed the Census Bureau to spend “up to” $250 
million for the Partnership Program and outreach to “minority 
communities and hard-to-reach populations.”

Several members of Congress specifically praised the inclusion of money 
for the census in the stimulus package.  In an article posted on 
Politico.com (Feb. 12, 2009), Rep. Mike Honda (D-CA), chair of the 
Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus (CAPAC), Rep. Barbara Lee 
(D-CA), chair of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC), and Rep. Nydia 
Velazquez (D-NY), chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus (CHC), 
praised the Obama Administration for its support of an additional $1 
billion for the census, which the lawmakers said would “instantly go 
toward job creation across the country in the next two years and will be 
crucial to ensuring an accurate count.”

The Census Bureau has said that it will use the stimulus funds to 
recruit as many as 2,000 additional Partnership Specialists this year 
($120 million) and expand advertising, especially in areas with 
historically low mail response rates ($100 million).  It is less clear 
how the Census Bureau will apply the remaining stimulus money to improve 
census operations in 2010.

Congress turns attention to funding for current and next fiscal years: 
Congress must now complete action on regular appropriations bills for 
Fiscal Year 2009 (FY2009), which began on October 1, 2008.  Most federal 
agencies, including the Census Bureau, are operating under a Continuing 
Resolution (Public Law 110-329) that expires on March 6.  The temporary 
funding measure, which left many agencies operating at 2008 spending 
levels, included an exception for the 2010 census, allocating the full 
$2.9 billion the Administration had requested to carry out final 
preparations for the decennial count (under the Periodic Censuses and 
Programs account).  Congress must reaffirm that amount, or approve 
another funding level, in the final appropriation for FY2009.

Congress also will begin considering appropriations for Fiscal Year 
2010, which begins on October 1, 2009, when President Obama releases his 
budget request for the federal government this Thursday.  Historically, 
the Census Bureau has requested roughly one-half of the census lifecycle 
cost in the year it conducts the count.  Last spring, the Commerce 
Department estimated that the 2010 census would cost $13.7 - $14.5 
billion for the full cycle of testing, planning, and implementation.

Top positions at Commerce and Census Bureau remain unfilled:  Sen. Judd 
Gregg (R-NH), the President’s second nominee for Secretary of the 
Department of Commerce, which includes the Census Bureau, withdrew from 
consideration for the post earlier this month.  In a statement he 
released on February 12, Sen. Gregg said that he had “found that on 
issues such as the stimulus package and the Census there are 
irresolvable conflicts for me.  Prior to accepting this post, we had 
discussed these and other potential differences, but unfortunately we 
did not adequately focus on these concerns.”

While a number of news editorials suggested that controversy over the 
role the White House would play in overseeing the 2010 census was a 
significant factor in the nominee’s decision to pull out, Sen. Gregg 
said at a news conference the same day that the census dispute was “a 
slight issue” for him and “was not a major issue.”

In discussing his withdrawal from consideration as Commerce Secretary, 
Sen. Gregg told an interviewer on CNBC (Feb. 13, 2009) that the 
Administration was prepared to select Dr. Kenneth Prewitt, Census 
Director during the 2000 count, as the new head of the Census Bureau. 
Sen. Gregg, who chaired the Senate Appropriations subcommittee that 
funded the Census Bureau during the last count, said of Dr. Prewitt, “I 
think he did an excellent job.”

However, late last week, several on-line news sources, including a New 
York Times podcast, reported that Dr. Prewitt, currently a professor at 
Columbia University, has withdrawn his name from consideration for the 
top Census post.

Lawmakers highlight concerns about census:  Two House members 
responsible for oversight of the Census Bureau urged the prompt 
appointment of a Census Director, saying in a joint February 12 
statement, “We need to have a Census Bureau director nominated and 
confirmed as soon as possible.”  Rep. Edolphus Towns (D-NY), chairman of 
the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, and Rep. William Lacy 
Clay (D-MO), who chairs the Subcommittee on Information Policy, Census, 
and National Archives, expressed deep concern about the status of 
planning for the 2010 census.  ““The Obama Administration inherited a 
Census Bureau that has failed to demonstrate its ability to successfully 
carry out the 2010 Census. We are deeply concerned that the Census 
Bureau will not be able to complete its constitutionally mandated 
responsibility to count U.S. residents without immediate and sustained 
attention from the Administration,” the representatives warned.  They 
said they are “committed to strict bipartisan oversight” of the census 
“so that the fairest assessment of the American population is reported.”

On February 12, House Republican leaders held a press conference to 
announce the formation of a Census Task Force to “examine all issues of 
the 2010 census.”  Republican Leader John Boehner (R-OH) said in a news 
release, “The American people expect the Census to be fair, impartial, 
and free of politics. … If this process is controlled by political 
operatives at the White House, instead of experts and statisticians at 
the Census Bureau, Americans are right to lose confidence in it.”
A day earlier, Boehner and other Republican members had sent a letter to 
President Obama, expressing concern about what they viewed as 
politicization of the census  (see February 11 Census News Brief).

Also at the press conference, Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA), the senior 
Republican on the Oversight and Government Reform Committee, said the 
Administration’s “[c]ommanding the Census Director to report directly to 
the White House is a naked political power grab and transparently 
partisan.  There is only one possible reason for it – political 
interference in the 2010 census and partisan manipulation of the 
results.”  The congressman said Republicans would consider a lawsuit 
against the Administration over the line of authority between the White 
House, the Commerce Department, and the Census Bureau.

Rep. Issa noted “the need for an independent Census Bureau” and that 
“every living former Census Director is on record supporting an 
independent Census Bureau,” referring to a letter the directors wrote 
last year in support of a bill Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) sponsored to 
establish the U.S. Census Bureau as an independent federal agency.  No 
Republicans co-sponsored the “Restoring the Integrity of American 
Statistics Act of 2008” (H.R. 7069, 110th Congress), which Rep. Maloney 
said she will reintroduce shortly.

Rep. Maloney, a member of the census oversight subcommittee, called the 
Republican press event “a show about nothing.”  She noted that the White 
House had issued a statement clarifying its intended role in overseeing 
the census and quoted spokesman Benjamin LaBolt as saying that the 
Administration “has not proposed removing the census from the Department 
of Commerce, and the same congressional committees that had oversight 
during the previous administration will retain that authority.”  Rep. 
Maloney called “the Bush Administration’s woefully inadequate planning 
and preparation for the next census” the “only true political 
machinations” surrounding the census.

Seven legislators, representing three House committees with jurisdiction 
over the census, reapportionment, and redistricting, will serve on the 
Republican Census Task Force:  Reps. Lynn Westmoreland (GA), who will 
chair the Task Force, Darrell Issa (CA), and Patrick McHenry (NC), from 
the Oversight and Government Reform Committee; Reps. Lamar Smith (TX) 
and James Sensenbrenner (WI), from the House Judiciary Committee; and 
Reps. Dan Lungren (CA) and Gregg Harper (MS), from the House 
Administration Committee.

The National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials 
(NALEO), a member of the 2010 Census Advisory Committee, said in a 
statement, “We applaud the Obama Administration for making a full and 
fair 2010 Census a priority, and we welcome the Republican Task Force to 
the bipartisan conversation on this vital issue.”
----------
Census News Briefs are prepared by Terri Ann Lowenthal, a consultant to 
the nonpartisan Census Project, organized by the Communications 
Consortium Media Center in Washington, DC.  Please direct questions 
about the information in this News Brief to Ms. Lowenthal at 
TerriAnn2K at aol.com.  Please feel free to circulate this document to 
other interested individuals and organizations.  Previous Census News 
Briefs are posted at www.thecensusproject.org

-- 
Ed Christopher
Resource Center Planning Team
Federal Highway Administration
19900 Governors Drive
Olympia Fields, Illinois  60461
708-283-3534 (V)  708-574-8131 (cell)
708-283-3501 (F)