Eleanor Holmes Norton: “I want to thank the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. Maloney) for her initiative in seeing a problem and seeing to it…”

“I want to thank the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. Maloney) for her initiative in seeing a problem and seeing to it that we deal with this problem while we have got a hand on it. Actually, her bill is very timely. The census is about to come out for the past 10 years, on December 30, and I can tell you, Madam Speaker, as a member of the subcommittee with jurisdiction over the census that the census has been controversial throughout my service in the Congress. Time and again we have seen these controversies before this committee. But the census should never be controversial. Neither should a bill that fixes much of what is wrong with the census in a systemic way, and handily passed the other body, which doesn't pass much these days. When it comes to the constitutionally required census, there really is only one way to act, and that is preventatively. I just want to say to the House that the handwriting is on the proverbial congressional wall.”