Entries from December 2009
by Terri Ann Lowenthal
Census Day is 100 days away. Do we rejoice or hit the panic button?
The Census Bureau hopes that by April 1, 2010, millions of American households will have checked off the answers to ten questions (ten minutes!) and mailed off “the shortest form in our lifetimes” (Census Director Robert Groves, 12/14/09) in its postage-paid envelope, each one percent of them saving taxpayers $90 million in door-knocking costs.
As the bureau moves from preparation to implementation in the next month, the specter of things going wrong always looms. From the operational (will the new system to manage workload and workforce perform as intended during peak operations?) to the psychological (will the populace be in the mood to cooperate?) to the diabolical (any more proposals out there to change the questionnaires before they go in the mail?), unwelcome or unforeseen events could derail the best-laid plans. Dr. Groves confessed at his press briefing last week that he is a worrier by nature. That’s probably a helpful trait for someone in charge of the nation’s largest peacetime activity.
And then there’s the legal: I am on high alert for a stealth lawsuit, accusing census partners of aiding and abetting fraud in the count. The allegations don’t have to stick or even have any basis in fact; high profile controversy is enough to throw the enumeration’s rhythm off balance. (One of my favorite comics from the legally-challenged 1990 decennial shows a census-taker carefully enumerating a sea of people … and a bespectacled Supreme Court justice off to the side scolding, “No sampling, no counting by two’s … oh gee, I didn’t make you lose count, did I?”)
But there’s also reason for hope. I am amazed (and heartened) by the tremendous commitment of national advocacy and grassroots organizations, and a loyal coalition of foundation supporters, who are serving as “trusted voices” — carrying the Census Bureau’s plea to neighborhoods and populations that are historically reluctant to take part. Their campaigns are creative and bold: While a Christmas-themed poster celebrating Mary and Joseph’s journey to be counted in an ancient census drew scorn from anti-census quarters and caution from a few academics, community faith leaders eagerly embraced the striking depiction and message. The mountain is high and the challenge is vast. The diversity of 21st century America makes a long-ago idea to base representation on population more difficult to ensure in theory and practice. Alone, the Census Bureau of 2010 would be hard-pressed to fulfill its constitutional obligation well; with the help of civic and faith leaders, social icons, and activist grassroots networks, it has a fighting chance.
So we gear up for a massive outreach and promotion effort. We slog in the trenches to convince skeptical, fearful or apathetic Americans – one by one, if necessary – that filling out their census forms is in the best interests of their families and communities. We keep our radar tuned for intentional distractions that could undermine the message of inclusive participation. In the end, we keep our eye on the ball and do the best we can. 308,206,709 … 308,206,710 … (as of 12:16PM EST on 12/22/09!).
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Happy holidays and a successful Census Year, from your friends at The Census Project! We’ll be off next week and will return with our regular weekly blog on January 5.
Categories: Census Outreach Efforts · General
Tagged: 10 Question, 2010 Decennial, census, Census & Media, Census & Politics, Census Bureau, Census Day, Census Operations, challenges, Complete Count, Dr. Robert Groves, mail response, NRFU, Outreach, Partnerships, Terri Ann Lowenthal, undercount
December 15, 2009 · 1 Comment
by Terri Ann Lowenthal
I’m about to wade into potentially dangerous waters, but I feel compelled to have this conversation in the light of day.
Last week, in a Glenn Beck-worthy Washington Times op-ed, former Times intern Anthony Bowe charged that pro-amnesty “left wing extremist” groups (and 2010 census partners) — like the National Council of La Raza, National Hispanic Leadership Agenda, and SEIU – are poised to help shift the balance of political power by helping ensure an accurate count of all people living in the U.S. Their role as census “footsoldiers” will “undermine trust in the census among mainstream Americans,” Times blogger Bowe warned, ably using a self-fulfilling-prophecy scare tactic characteristic of, say, Rush Limbaugh.
Is the attack an aberration? Were it only so. Lawmakers spooked by the thought of an inclusive census dipped their toes in the water with a swift and cutting campaign against ACORN, suggesting (falsely) that census takers hired by the nonprofit advocacy group would overstate population counts to benefit liberal politicians (e.g. Democrats). The flurry of press coverage tying the enumeration to the specter of fraud was enough for the census chief to pull the plug on ACORN’s 2010 census “partnership,” even though the organization hadn’t so much as posted the 2010 logo on its web site.
In reality, ACORN’s only useful role would have been to encourage census participation among its core constituency: the poor. Emboldened by their success in pushing one hard-to-count community advocate out of the way, some conservatives are ready to take on civil and immigrant rights groups in the public arena and possibly in the courts.
Last summer, the chair of the Republican Census Task Force sent a fundraising appeal, warning that “radical” interest groups – like the NAACP and Hispanic Federation – were teaming up with President Obama to “rig” census results in favor of “liberals.” For whom was the Georgia lawmaker raising money? The Southeastern Legal Foundation (SLF), which successfully challenged (all the way to the Supreme Court) the use of statistical sampling methods in the 2000 census. SLF – “THE EXPERTS in stopping liberals from manipulating the census,” according to Rep. Lynn Westmoreland (R-GA) – know how to “advance our conservative agenda … in the ‘Court of Public Opinion’,” the plea for money assured.
The bogeyman of censuses past – statistical sampling – is dead and buried for 2010, removing one sure-fire way of reducing the disproportionate undercount of racial minorities and the poor. But with populations of color – especially Latinos — growing significantly over the past decade, lawmakers (how can I say this tactfully?) who are less likely to represent hard-to-count communities, have to find another way to keep the numbers in Democratic-leaning areas low. As the distinguished gentleman from Georgia helpfully observed, the census is “the alpha and omega of political power” (catchy!), whose constitutional integrity must be defended at all costs (or at least for as much money as they can raise!).
Those same “corrupt” champions of liberal doctrine are now gearing up to encourage and facilitate census participation in historically undercounted communities across the country, employing traditional grassroots strategies to educate skeptical and fearful population groups about the importance of being counted. And I can picture the guardians of “conservative values” standing in the wings, waiting to gin up anti-Obama fury by insinuating manipulation of the numbers in low-income, minority, and immigrant neighborhoods. They don’t have to prove a thing – success can simply mean casting a shadow over the integrity of the count and tying up the Census Bureau and redistricting process in court for years.
Am I overreacting? I frankly hope so, but I’m uneasy. Does anyone else see clouds on the horizon?
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Clarification: Census Bureau officials have asked us to clarify a statement in the December 1, 2009, Census Project Blog, “Are Northern States Being Cheated? Counting Snowbirds in the Census,” regarding the policy for enumerating residents of northern states who do not return a questionnaire from their southern home and are later visited by a census taker at their northern address during Nonresponse Follow-Up (e.g. door-to-door visits to unresponsive homes). The Census Bureau will count people who have two residences “where they spend the majority of their time,” according to a Kansas City Regional Census Office official. People should decide where they spend the majority of their time and fill out the census form sent to that address. If a respondent tells a census taker that they consider their northern address to be their home, even if they happened to still be staying at their southern home on Census Day, the census taker will record the residents at their northern address.
Categories: Politics & Census 2010
Tagged: 2010 Decennial, Immigration, Terri Ann Lowenthal, challenges, Partnerships, Outreach, Complete Count, census, Census & Politics, Census & Media, Press Questions, Congress, undercount, Latinos & the Census
by Terri Ann Lowenthal
At a hearing last week, the House census subcommittee highlighted outreach and promotion activities for the 2010 count. The focus wasn’t on the Census Bureau’s extensive communications program but on grassroots organizations, state and local governments, and businesses – sectors that are operating in what I call a “parallel universe” to help ensure an inclusive count in all communities.
Groups representing hard-to-count populations are coordinating activities with the Census Bureau, while also working on their own to tear down significant barriers that keep millions of people from responding to the census. Their efforts are no small matter. At a recent 2010 Census Advisory Committee meeting, Census Director Robert Groves frankly acknowledged that many Americans would dodge the decennial count were it not for the extensive work of community groups and other trusted voices.
The director’s observation might seem obvious to advocates representing the interests of hard-to-count populations or to nonprofits serving the needs of distressed neighborhoods, where many residents view government with a skeptical eye. But the Census Bureau’s robust effort to harness support from stakeholders in every sector and at every level of society — the Partnership Program — doesn’t translate into dollars for those whose voices resonate loudest in hard-to-enumerate communities.
Instead, foundations – mostly private, some corporate — have made much of the parallel universe activity possible. In an unprecedented collaborative approach, funders are supporting census outreach and promotion activities from the national to neighborhood levels. Projects with a broad reach include Nonprofits Count! (Nonprofit Voter Engagement Network), It’s Time! Make Yourself Count! (Leadership Conference on Civil Rights), ya es hora! Hagase Contar! (coalition of Hispanic advocacy and faith groups and media companies), and Indian Country Counts (National Congress of American Indians), and similar campaigns targeting the Black, Asian, and Arab American communities, among others. (My favorite poster from this other-census-world is a minimalist but striking depiction of Mary and Joseph following the star to Bethlehem, to be counted in the first census, courtesy of NALEO.)
Philanthropy also has teamed with states and municipalities, and pooled resources, to fund grassroots education and fill-out-the-form events. Examples include Count Me In! campaigns in Illinois, Long Island, New York City and Massachusetts, and collaborative initiatives in California, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Oregon and Ohio.
The Census Bureau will spend $400+ million on its own worthwhile communications campaign, blanketing the airwaves and cyberspace with ads and messages starting next month. Should some of this money go to community groups desperate – and well positioned – to help carry those messages to the street?
I think it should, but getting dollars into the right hands is easier said than done. The Census Bureau is a statistical, not grant-making, agency. Setting grant eligibility requirements won’t be easy when almost any grassroots organization could reach a segment of the hard-to-count population, and when members of Congress will want to ensure a share of the pie for their own districts. But Congress should consider the options soon. Given philanthropy’s growing involvement in the census, leading civic role, knowledge of hard-to-count communities, and grant-making prowess, foundations might be a natural conduit for government funds in a public-private partnership that both Republicans and Democrats could love.
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Full disclosure: The writer is a consultant to the Funders Census Initiative, an ad hoc coalition of foundations and philanthropic affinity groups interested in a fair and accurate census.
Categories: Census Outreach Efforts · Partnerships
Tagged: 2010 Decennial, Advertising, census, Census & Media, Census Bureau, Complete Count, Congress, Dr. Robert Groves, Latinos & the Census, NALEO, Outreach, Partnerships, Terri Ann Lowenthal
by Terri Ann Lowenthal
Sometimes you just want to shake our esteemed senators and representatives, and ask where they have been, lo, these past few years, while the Census Bureau has been painstakingly putting together the hundreds of operational building blocks that make a decennial census. When it’s time to execute the count, pull out one block and watch the rest scatter.
Lawmakers seem not to care. Add a question to the form months before the mailing begins? Only “bureaucrats” can’t figure out how to do it, according to one thoughtful senator. Now here comes another eleventh-hour idea, one that appears to be well-intentioned but is woefully tardy and improperly aimed.
Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY) and three colleagues wrote this week to Commerce Department chief Gary Locke, suggesting that the upcoming decennial count offers a chance to help the millions of Americans without jobs. The Census Bureau, they proposed, should give a “hiring preference” to people whose unemployment benefits are about to expire. To identify these folks, the bureau should start recruiting and even administering the hiring test at unemployment offices.
Intriguing concept. The Census Bureau is about to hire upwards of one million temporary workers to carry out the enumeration next year. A mini-stimulus program at our fingertips!
But, hell-O! Didn’t these senators know, say, nine months ago that the nation was facing an unemployment crisis? Did they have to wait until the bureau launched its meticulous hiring plan to ask Secretary Locke to change the whole strategy? No ideas for how the Census Bureau will get around civil service requirements to rank applicants according to their test scores. (And who cares if they hire the most qualified people anyway?) No thoughts about how applicants with veterans’ preference would fit into the picture. No reflection about how people hoping to supplement their income from low wage jobs with census employment might feel about being passed over, even if they score well on the test. The country’s greatest deliberative body need not sweat the details. Just brainstorm ways to address a national crisis, send a letter, put out a press release, and let the Census Bureau figure it out.
People, let’s get this straight: It is too late to make any major changes to census procedures without putting the entire operation at risk. Senior Census Bureau managers have to keep their eyes on the ball and make sure each component of the nation’s most complex domestic exercise is carried out properly and on time. Mollifying 535+ members of Congress who haven’t been paying attention for the past nine years, only weeks before the great national tally starts, isn’t part of the equation.
The Census Bureau has, in fact, been reaching out to people who are unemployed, encouraging them to apply for temporary positions. But the census is not a jobs program. I’ll say it over and over: There is one goal, and that is to get the most accurate and representative count of the population possible. For all other policy objectives, please look elsewhere for a real solution.
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Quote of the Week: “I learned you should count everyone in your family – except animals.” 7-year old Harshada Seelam, Gateway Math and Science Elementary School, St. Louis, Missouri (as quoted in a 12/2/09 St. Louis Post Dispatch article on Census Director Robert Groves’ visit to the school the previous day). Way to go, Harshada … and apologies to pet lovers everywhere!
Categories: Congressional Oversight
Tagged: 2010 Decennial, census, Census & Politics, Census Bureau, census hiring, Census Operations, challenges, Congress, Congressional Oversight, employment, Terri Ann Lowenthal
