Carolyn Maloney: “I appreciate the gentleman's concerns. We should pass this bill. Then, in the new Congress, you can add your amendments…”

“I appreciate the gentleman's concerns. We should pass this bill. Then, in the new Congress, you can add your amendments or your ideas to the underlying bill. This is a strong bill with no cost to the American taxpayers, no increased cost; and it will help ensure a better census for 2010. As I said, it has very strong bipartisan support, particularly from the seven living former Census Directors, who served Republican and Democratic Presidents. They support this bill. They testified before Congress that this bill would make a stronger, more accountable, transparent census. The former Directors' support and advocacy on behalf of this bill, I believe, underscores the importance of the reforms needed to ensure that the Census Bureau is able to best perform its constitutional mandate of providing a fair and accurate census count. Again, I want to underscore: How many times have we seen a bill come over with 100 Senators who are in support of it--totally unanimous? totally bipartisan? I am confident that this bill will ensure that Congress will get the information we need and deserve in order to get us a fair and fully funded Census which is independent and will respond, no matter who occupies the White House. In other words, this is a very important bill, so I urge a strong bipartisan vote in support of it.”