Census Pros Oppose Adjustment

Census Pros Oppose Adjustment

NewsMax.com Wires
Friday, March 2, 2001

WASHINGTON (UPI) – Career professionals at the U.S. Census Bureau Thursday recommended that Commerce Secretary Donald Evans not adjust the 2000 Census using statistical sampling.

The unexpected recommendation diffuses a politically charged atmosphere surrounding Evans' decision, which will have a huge effect on how cities receive $185 million in federal aid each year and how congressional districts get redrawn prior to the 2002 elections.

"Acting Census Bureau Director William G. Barron, Jr. and a panel of experts recommended Thursday that unadjusted data be released as the Bureau's official redistricting data as a result of the 2000 Census," the Commerce Department said in a statement.

Evans said the report "will be a critical element of my deliberations."

On Dec. 28, the bureau released its head count for the 2000 Census with a tally of 281,421,906 Americans. But the bureau had not decided whether to adjust that number using statistical analyses to better cover "undercounts," who are traditionally minorities. An adjustment would send more money to cities and boost Democrats' hand in redistricting, leftist groups said.

The Clinton administration had passed a rule that the career professionals at the bureau – and not political appointees – make the final decision on whether to adjust the census.

But last month Evans announced he would make the decision himself, presumably against adjusting the head count. Los Angeles had sued the Bush administration for that decision, arguing that Evans had unilaterally changed the rules.

On Thursday, however, those career officials delivered a recommendation to Evans that he not make the adjustment he did not want to make anyway.

"The civil rights community is deeply disappointed by today's announcement," said Wade Henderson, executive director of Leadership Conference on Civil Rights. "We know definitively that the 2000 census missed millions of people and that a disproportionate number of those missed were people of color, children, and the urban and rural poor."

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