[CTPP] Census News Brief

[Ed Christopher]

LOCKE CONFIRMED AS COMMERCE SECRETARY; HOUSE PANEL REVIEWS 2010 CENSUS 
COMMUNICATIONS CAMPAIGN  Plus: Address Canvassing Starts; Stakeholder 
Activities; and more.

On March 24, the U.S. Senate confirmed, by voice vote, the nomination of 
former Washington State Governor Gary Locke to be the nation’s 36th 
Secretary of Commerce, with responsibility for a number of diverse 
federal agencies including the U.S. Census Bureau and the Bureau of 
Economic Analysis (BEA), both part of the department’s Economics and 
Statistics Administration (ESA).

The President has not yet nominated a Census director or Under Secretary 
of Commerce for Economic Affairs, who would head ESA; both positions 
require Senate confirmation.  The director of BEA is a career civil servant.

House panel reviews 2010 census communications campaign:  The House 
Subcommittee on Information Policy, Census, and National Archives held a 
hearing on March 23 to review the Census Bureau’s strategy for reducing 
the undercount of “hard to count” populations.  The hearing focused on 
the 2010 Census Communication Campaign, which includes paid media, 
outreach, Census in the Schools, and the Partnership Program.  Witnesses 
included Acting Census Bureau Director Thomas Mesenbourg and 
representatives of the Government Accountability Office (GAO), 
Communications Campaign contractor DraftFCB, and New York City’s 2010 
census campaign.  Statements and testimony from the hearing are 
available on-line at 
http://informationpolicy.oversight.house.gov/story.asp?ID=2350.

Subcommittee Chairman William “Lacy” Clay (D-MO) noted that many of the 
people missed in the 2000 census “were African American or Hispanic, 
most were poor, and all of them deserved to be counted,” said Chairman 
Clay. “I expect the Census Bureau, the Partnership organizations and the 
advertising campaign to aggressively target these hard to count 
populations and to make serious progress in reducing the chronic 
undercount of minorities.”  Mr. Mesenbourg and DraftFCB Executive Vice 
President Jeff Tarakajian reported that the total advertising and 
outreach budget for the 2010 census is $312 million, which includes 
additional funds from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 
(the stimulus bill); $258 million of that amount is allocated for paid 
media.  According to the GAO, 55 percent of the advertising budget will 
be used for national media, and 45 percent will be used for local media, 
primarily to target specific hard-to-count communities.  Stimulus funds 
also are being used to expand the Partnership Program; the Census Bureau 
will hire about 2,000 partnership specialists by June 2009, adding to 
the 680 partnership staff hired earlier this year under the original 
2010 census plan.

During the hearing, Chairman Clay expressed concern about the amount of 
stimulus funds allocated for media and outreach targeting African 
American, Hispanic, and Asian American communities.   The congressman 
said he believed more money should be spent on advertising in Black and 
Hispanic communities, and he questioned the preliminary decision to 
increase advertising in Asian American communities by $13 million, 
saying that Asian Americans were “historically over counted” in the census.

In response to Rep. Clay’s remarks, which were reported in the St. Louis 
Post Dispatch, the Asian American Justice Center (AAJC), a member of the 
Census Bureau’s 2010 Census Advisory Committee, prepared a fact sheet, 
“The Truth About Asian Americans and the Census: Debunking the Myths,” 
posted on its web site at 
(http://www.advancingequality.org/censuspubs/).  Addressing the 
assertion that Asian Americans were overcounted in the 2000 census, the 
publication notes that, “The Census Bureau itself did not have 
confidence in its measures of census accuracy in 2000, especially for 
smaller population groups such as Asian Americans.   The Census Bureau 
cited ‘troubling anomalies and unexplained results’ in its decision not 
to use the results of its accuracy-check survey to adjust the final 
census numbers.”  The fact sheet refers to the Accuracy and Coverage 
Evaluation (A.C.E.) Revision II report issued in March 2003, which 
documents the Census Bureau’s final decision not to use the results of 
the A.C.E. survey to adjust the 2000 census for any official purpose, 
such as the allocation of federal program funds.

Later in the week, Rep. Clay and Rep. Mike Honda (D-CA), chairman of the 
Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus and a member of the House 
appropriations subcommittee that funds the Census Bureau, issued a joint 
statement recognizing Senate confirmation of Commerce Secretary Gary 
Locke.  The lawmakers said they looked forward to working with the 
Secretary and the President to help ensure adequate resources for 
“outreach to all hard-to-count communities, including African American, 
Asian American and Pacific Islander, Hispanic, and tribal communities. “ 
  Noting that many racial and ethnic minorities distrust government 
agencies and are reluctant to answer government surveys, Reps. Honda and 
Clay said, “We support the Census Bureau’s media and other outreach to 
linguistically and culturally isolated communities, such as households 
in the African, Asian, Latino, and other diasporas.”  The statement 
emphasized the need for “robust resources for in-language paid media,” 
noting high proportions of limited English-language proficiency among 
Asian Americans and in Latino households where Spanish is spoken at 
home.  The legislators also cited a 300 percent increase in Asian media 
outlets in the United States between 1990 and 2007.

2010 Census operational update:  2010 Census field operations kick-off 
on a large scale this week with the start of address canvassing.  More 
than 140,000 “address listers” will update and verify 145 million 
addresses on the Census Bureau’s Master Address File (MAF) over several 
months, ending in mid-July.  The work will be conducted out of 151 Local 
Census Offices (LCOs); the remaining 350 LCOs will open in the Fall. 
Address canvassing will include “group quarters,” such as college dorms, 
prisons, and military barracks, for the first time.  Census workers also 
will update the address list this Spring to include shelters, soup 
kitchens, mobile food vans, and similar locations that serve people 
without a usual home.

The Census Bureau formally kicks-off its 2010 Census Partnership Program 
with a National Partner Briefing in Washington, DC on March 30.  About 
250 non-profit, corporate, and government partner organizations are 
expected to attend.  The goal of the briefing is to “inform partners 
about the 2010 Census; articulate the role partners can play; identify 
where partners can access resources; and motivate partners to launch 
2010 Census outreach efforts,” according to a Census Bureau description 
of the event.  The Census Bureau will make a video and audio recording 
of the briefing available on-line for the thousands of partner 
organizations not able to attend; it said that more than 10,000 
organizations nationwide have signed Partnership Agreements for the 2010 
census.  About 140,000 organizations were official census partners in 2000.

Advocates question tabulation plans for married gay couples:  Advocates 
for the gay community are challenging the Census Bureau’s decision to 
re-code married couples of the same sex as “unmarried partners” in the 
2010 census relationship question.  New York City Councilman Bill de 
Blasio (D-District 39) introduced a resolution earlier this month, 
calling on the Census Bureau to publish data on same-sex couples who 
report that they are married.  New York State recognizes same-sex 
marriages performed in states and other countries where gay marriage is 
legal.

According to articles in The New York Times and other news outlets, the 
Census Bureau has determined that the Defense of Marriage Act of 1996 
prohibits it from tabulating data on marriages that are not between 
opposite-sex couples.  Similarly, same-sex couples with children will 
not meet the Census Bureau’s definition of a “family” when the agency 
publishes data on families and households; the children will be 
considered part of a single-parent household.

The National Gay and Lesbian Task Force Action Fund, calling the Census 
Bureau’s tabulation policy “expensive and insulting” and “a holdover 
from the Bush Administration,” is circulating a petition to Acting 
Census Director Thomas Mesenbourg, asking him “to reverse the Census 
Bureau’s current policy and count all legally recognized marriages 
equally in the 2010 census — including those of same-sex couples.”

Stakeholder activities highlight 2010 census:  Stakeholder organizations 
are continuing to highlight the importance of an accurate count and 
mobilizing their constituencies across the country to promote participation.

The Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus (CAPAC) held a national 
teleconference on March 23 to promote an accurate count of Asian 
Americans and Pacific Islanders in the 2010 census.  CAPAC Chairman Mike 
Honda (D-CA) moderated the discussion, which included remarks by 
Associate Census Director for Decennial Census, Arnold Jackson; Terry 
Ao, Asian American Justice Center; Bill Imada, President of IW Group, 
which is developing the 2010 census media campaign for the Asian 
American community; and other census stakeholders.

On April 1, 2009, a coalition of national Spanish-language media and 
Latino organizations will launch their “ya es hora HAGASE CONTAR! (It’s 
Time, Make Yourself Count!) campaign , to “motivate and inform the 
nearly 50 million U.S. Latinos to participate in the 2010 Census.”  The 
announcement comes one year before Census Day, which is set by law 
(Title 13, United States Code) and provides the reference point for all 
census responses.

The Population Reference Bureau (PRB) is hosting a policy seminar, 
“Countdown to the 2010 Census: What You Need to Know,” on April 15 in 
Washington, DC.  The “brown bag lunch” event will feature Dr. Daniel 
Weinberg, Assistant Director for Decennial Census and ACS, U.S. Census 
Bureau; Dr. William O’Hare, Senior Fellow at the Annie E. Casey 
Foundation and a consultant to the Funder Census Initiative; and Mary Jo 
Hoeksema, Director of Government and Public Affairs for the Population 
Association of America and a consultant to The Census Project.

For more information about any of these events, please visit the web 
sites of the sponsoring organizations.

Census advisory committees to hold spring meetings: The Census Advisory 
Committee of Professional Associations will meet on April 16-17, 2009, 
at Census Bureau headquarters in Suitland, MD.  The meeting, which is 
open to the public, runs from 8:30 AM – 5:00 PM on April 16, and from 
8:30 AM – 12:00 PM on April 17.

The Census Bureau’s five Race and Ethnic Advisory Committees (REACs) 
will meet on April 22-24, 2009, and the 2010 Census Advisory Committee 
will meet on May 7-8, 2009, both at Census Bureau headquarters.  Agendas 
for these meetings will be available soon.

Anyone interested in attending advisory committee meetings must call 
301-763-3231 upon arrival at the Census Bureau on the day of the meeting 
and present a photo ID, due to increased security procedures.

Census News Briefs are prepared by Terri Ann Lowenthal, a legislative 
and policy consultant working with a wide range of census stakeholders 
to promote an accurate 2010 census.  All views expressed in the News 
Briefs are solely those of the author.  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 and to reprint any or all 
of the information.   Previous Census News Briefs are posted at the 
Census Project web site (www.thecensusproject.org).

-- 
Ed Christopher
708-283-3534 (V)
708-574-8131 (cell)

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