Jeff Miller: “We talk about truth and working together. Yesterday we marked up seven bills in the Committee on Government Reform to…”

“We talk about truth and working together. Yesterday we marked up seven bills in the Committee on Government Reform to improve the census. We mentioned one that involves trust and local officials that we have talked about, the mayors and commissioners that we have been hearing about from our district. That is something called post-census local review. It was used in 1990. What it is, is after the census is started, the local communities get a chance to verify the housing units in their area. They have a final check on the numbers before they become published numbers, to catch mistakes. Because mistakes are made. We had a hearing on this. The gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Petri) was talking about up in his district, a whole ward, a mistake was made and it was left out. The idea is let the local communities have one last chance to look at the numbers and verify the housing units in their community, their city, their county, whatever the jurisdictional area we are talking about. It makes sense. It is a trust factor. They are opposed to it. The President sent a letter, he will veto us. It was done in 1990. It cost $7 million in 1990. We are not talking about a huge sum of money. But it gives a trust, a chance for the local cities. The National League of Cities is supporting this, the National Association of Towns and Townships is supporting this, all kinds of mayors. They have gotten to the big city mayors. Mayor Archer of Detroit added 45,000 people in 1990.”