Jeff Miller: “Mr. Speaker, post-census local review is a very straightforward, commonsense idea used by the Census Bureau in 1990. It…”

“Mr. Speaker, post-census local review is a very straightforward, commonsense idea used by the Census Bureau in 1990. It is a voluntary program that allows local governments to check for mistakes by the Census Bureau that may have left households in their communities uncounted. If a local government does not want to participate in the program, nothing in the legislation would make them. Make no mistake, Mr. Speaker. Post-census local review is in no way designed to criticize the Census Bureau. Rather, Mr. Speaker, H.R. 472 is designed to recognize an indisputable fact. As the Census Bureau attempts to enumerate 275 million people residing in America on Census Day, which is April 1, 2000, it is going to make some mistakes. Post-census local review is designed to find and then correct these errors. Mr. Speaker, in 1990 post-census local review corrected close to 400,000 errors. Eighty thousand households were added to the count, and another almost 200,000 were moved to their correct block. Another 100,000 households were removed from the census count because they did not belong. Mr. Speaker, this program is designed to make the census more accurate, and that is exactly what it does. Who here can argue that catching 400,000 errors before they become final is not a worthwhile goal?”