Norton Questions Officials on Ensuring Census Properly Counts Minorities and Speaks Out Against Prison Gerrymandering

WASHINGTON, D.C.—Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) yesterday at a House Subcommittee on Government Operations hearing on the Government Accountability Office’s (GAO) review of the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2016 site tests questioned Census Bureau and GAO officials about what she calls “the enigma of minorities” in every census, individuals who are more difficult to reach. Norton cited the “Harris Count” field test, in which even deploying new technology, approximately 30 percent of households in the test could not be contacted after six attempts. Robert Goldenkoff, Director of Strategic Issues-Census Issues at GAO, said that new technology used to record door-to-door responses were inflexible. For example, enumerators have to close a particular case for the day even if they knew that a resident had returned to their home. However, Census Bureau Director John Thompson added that the 30 percent non-contact mark would not be acceptable for the 2020 census, and that the field tests were conducted in part to determine best times to visit the households. Norton requested that the Census Bureau report to the committee how many attempts it takes on average to successfully contact a minority household.

“We need to make sure that the Census does not leave out individuals who often are the hardest to reach, such as minorities and others who often have multiple jobs, work during the day, and can only be reached later in the evening,” Norton said. “The GAO report shows the Census Bureau has a long way to go to ensuring that the 2020 Census truly captures the nation’s ever-changing demographics.”

Norton also raised her concerns about prison gerrymandering and asked what the Census Bureau was doing to address it. She said counting prisoners’ at their prison addresses distorts the count for their homes of origin, which can affect everything determined by the Census, including the appropriate number of congressional districts, district lines within a state, and allocation of federal funds. She cited several recent court cases that have held that prison gerrymandering violates the U.S. Constitution. The Census Bureau has maintained that a prisoner’s “usual residence” for counting purposes would be at the prison they are held. Director Thompson responded that the Bureau had conducted a request for comment on its residence criteria in June and was currently evaluating the over 78,000 responses they had received in order to issue a final determination.