Jeff Miller: “As I mentioned, we in the committee yesterday marked up bills to improve the census, and you would think they would want…”

“As I mentioned, we in the committee yesterday marked up bills to improve the census, and you would think they would want to have the ideas of Congress, like the post-census local review. Give those local officials like they had in 1990 a chance to have a quality check. Another issue: They are opposing, and let me tell my colleagues this. They are opposing making the census form available in numerous languages and Braille. They said we are going to put it in five languages besides English, and if you know of another language, tough. You have to call an 800 number, and hopefully you will find somebody who can translate. And if you are blind, you know, tough. I mean what do you do? That is so sad. They are opposed to it. It is not that difficult to make available forms for those that request it to get these forms. I was in Miami. We had a hearing back in December. The gentlewoman from Florida (Mrs. Meek) has about 150,000 Haitians in her district. Now a lot of them have not learned English yet, and how do they fill out a form? Our colleague, the gentleman from California (Mr. Horn) from Long Beach, he has about 50,000 Cambodians in his district. Now how do they fill out a form if an elderly person? Now somebody would say, oh, they should not be counted, but everybody living in this country gets counted. It is required by our United States Constitution.”