Sean Patrick Maloney: “I rise this evening to clarify the status of planning for the 2000 Census. Some of my colleagues tried to give the…”

“I rise this evening to clarify the status of planning for the 2000 Census. Some of my colleagues tried to give the impression that the Census Bureau is pursuing an illegal course of action by planning for a scientific census that will count all Americans. Nothing could be further from the truth. There are three issues here: Number one, what have the courts said? Secondly, what were the terms of the agreement between the administration and Congress passed by the Commerce, Justice, State Appropriations bill last November? And thirdly, what is the appropriate course of action for the future? Last month, the District Court for the District of Columbia issued a ruling in the case of the U.S. House of Representatives v. the Department of Commerce. That court ruled that the use of sampling in the census violates the provisions of Title 13 of the United States Code. If this were the first ruling on this issue, this might be news, but it is not. The fact of the matter is, three district courts have ruled on this issue since 1980 and all three have come to the opposite conclusion.”