Republican calls for more workers, money for Census

The Census Bureau would hire more head counters and get an infusion of cash to improve voluntary participation in the 2000 census, under a plan proposed by a key House Republican Wednesday.

Trumpeting the Supreme Court's Monday ruling that federal law prohibits the bureau from using statistical sampling to determine the reapportionment of House seats, Census Subcommittee Chairman Dan Miller, R-Fla., unveiled a proposal Wednesday "designed to provide the additional tools needed to improve the 2000 census."

In scrapping the bureau's sampling plan, Miller proposed hiring more enumerators, spending $300 million more for advertising and reinstating a comprehensive followup on citizens who fail to return forms.

Miller said he was unsure whether his plan would take the form of a supplemental spending bill or be part of an FY2000 spending bill, and did not rule out attaching it to the Commerce-Justice- State appropriations bill Congress must approve by June 15 to fund those departments' operations through the end of FY99. The administration, which had been planning dual sampling and traditional census tracks before Monday's decision, appears to be moving toward a two-number count.

But President Clinton will almost certainly veto any bill that prevents the Census Bureau from including statistical sampling in the 2000 census, House Government Reform Census Subcommittee ranking member Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., said.

"President Clinton has a lot of ink in his veto pen, and he will use it," Maloney said at a charged and largely partisan forum held by the U.S. Conference of Mayors.

Commerce Department Undersecretary Robert Shapiro told CongressDaily the bureau will finalize its plan "as soon as possible," but would not say whether Clinton would veto a bill that forbids any plan that uses at least some element of sampling.

"There will be one number that will be issued by the Census Bureau as the official number of the American population," Shapiro said, and added the bureau would provide an "unadjusted number for apportionment."