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By Kent Larsen
Utah's Cannon Takes on Census Bureau over Missionary Count
WASHINGTON, DC -- Utah Representative Chris Cannon yesterday opened a new
front in Utah's war with the US Census Bureau over an additional seat in the
US House of Representatives. Cannon introduced legislation in Congress that
would freeze funding for a key Census Bureau project, effectively holding
the project hostage until the Bureau makes progress on a plan for counting
American citizens living overseas.
The target of Cannon's legislation is the $135 million a year American
Community Survey, which is meant to replace the long form of the decennial
census. The survey is a pet project of the Bureau, which believes that the
data gained will be much better than the long form because the survey will
be taken annually instead of every ten years.
Cannon's effort comes after he questioned Census Bureau officials at a House
Census subcommittee hearing and didn't like the answers he got. In the
hearing, Cannon asked acting Census Bureau director William G. Barron Jr.
how plans are coming to count Americans overseas in 2010, and was told a
final plan was "probably a pretty good length of time away. The issues are
daunting."
After the hearing, Cannon told the Deseret News he was not satisfied with
the answer and thought that the Bureau should give counting Americans abroad
higher priority than the American Community Survey. "That information is
nice. But the core mission of the census according to the Constitution is
for apportionment" of House seats. "They need to focus on that core mission
before all that other stuff." Cannon made a similar statement to the Salt
Lake Tribune, "The Census Bureau has a single mission mandated by the
Constitution: to count our nation's population every 10 years so that each
state is fairly represented in Congress," Cannon said. "It's time to focus
the Census Bureau on the critical task, even if it means cutting back on
less important projects."
Cannon spokesman Jeff Hartley added that the main beneficiaries of the
American Community Survey are private companies, "The Constitution doesn't
say that you should produce this marketable, commercial information for
anybody," Hartley said. "It's probably something that marketers could do for
themselves rather than having the federal government do it." But some
demographers disagree with Hartley, including Neil Ashdown, manager of
demographic and economic analysis for the state of Utah. "We've never had
access to this [every year] before, so it certainly will help in our
planning," said Ashdown.
The state of Utah has filed two lawsuits seeking to get the Census changed
to either include LDS missionaries or exclude all overseas personnel. A
panel of judges turned down the state in April, and the state filed an
appeal to the US Supreme Court. On Monday, Utah Deputy Attorney General Ray
Hintze filed an additional lawsuit challenging the Census' use of sampling
for those that don't respond to the survey.
Sources:
Cannon has a new tack on Census
Deseret News 14Jun01 T2
By Lee Davidson: Deseret News Washington correspondent
Cannon Tries to Stop Annual Census Survey
Salt Lake Tribune 15Jun01 T2
By Brandon Loomis: Salt Lake Tribune
See also:
Utah Appeals, and Files New Census Lawsuit
Census Lawsuit Loses on Appeal
Census Judge Reverses Himself, Case to be Heard by Three Judge Panel
Judge's Ruling Will Delay Resolution of Census Lawsuit
North Carolina Claims Census Lawsuit without Merit
Utah Files Lawsuit Over LDS Missionary Census Exclusion
Census Official That Cost Utah House Seat Is LDS
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