1990 Census

AS WITH everything that really counts in Washington, the eye-glazing debate over statistical corrections to the 1990 census was mostly about power and money. More specifically: your money and other people's power over your money. It's too important an issue to be settled solely by politicians.When Congress doles out some $59 billion annually for Head Start, social services, nutrition, homeless aid and many other programs, the main determinant of how much cash comes to states is the census.

Commerce Secretary Robert A. Mosbacher refused this week to ''abandon a 200-year tradition of how we actually count people.''But the U.S. census will never be the same.The federal government spent $2.6 billion on the 1990 census and wound up with a result about as popular as an infectious disease. In fact, a top official of the Census Bureau's parent agency likened the census to cancer.''We've known about cancer for a long time and still can't cure it. This is not a whole lot easier problem,'' said Michael Darby, assistant secretary of commerce.

The 1990 census was worse than anybody thought. It was a much worse job of counting than in 1980. There can be no disputing now those who say the official figures must be adjusted.The Constitution requires an "enumeration" of Americans ever10 years for apportioning seats in the House of Representatives. That language has been taken by Census Bureau officials and most members of Congress to mean that there had to be a head count and only a head count for official purposes.This consensus view was arrived at even even though almost all experts agreed a head count always fell short, and even though by the 1970s and 1980s it had become possible to use advanced statistical techniques to get an estimate much more accurate than a head count.

SAN JOSE, Calif. -- The Census Bureau is testing a plan to cut the U.S. census down to postcard size and -- to fill the resulting information gap -- create a huge federal electronic information system linking records from sources as varied as the Internal Revenue Service, county assessors and direct-mail marketers.Faced with pressure to save money, improve the count of minorities and enter the 21st century, census officials have been quietly soliciting opinions from statisticians and demographers on the possibility of a scaled-down census.

GIVEN THE unpopularity of Congress these days, this is going to sound crazy, but hear me out before you lock me up.I think we need more members of the House of Representatives. A lot more. We have 435. I think we need more than twice that many.Article I, Section 1 of the Constitution requires a census every 10 years for the purpose of apportioning seats in the House of Representatives. From 1790 through 1910 (with the exception of 1840), after each census of an ever-growing population, Congress increased House membership.

The good news is that the Census Bureau has begun releasing results of the 1990 census, the most detailed collection of statistics ever gathered about Americans.The bad news is that many companies will not know how to use the census information to their advantage or, intimidated by the sheer volume of it, will never use it at all."Getting information from the census is like taking a drink out of a fire hydrant," said Barbara Everitt Bryant, director of the U.S. Census Bureau. Ms. Bryant was the keynote speaker at a daylong conference in Baltimore last month, co-sponsored by the Census Bureau and the Maryland Office of Planning, on how to use the new census data.

News that Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke will draft his 1991 redistricting plan using 10-year-old census data is causing anxiety among City Council members, some of whom are worried that the mayor may draw them out of their current councilmanic districts.The anxiety was apparent yesterday when council members learned that final 1990 census figures will not be available until at least April, two months after Schmoke must submit his redistricting plan to the council. The news came at the first of several planned hearings on the 1991 revision of the boundaries for the city's six councilmanic districts.

Baltimore's preliminary census count fell far short of projections. The mayor was annoyed and went door to door seeking residents missed in the head count. The city sued to keep Census Bureau offices here open longer than planned.Despite resemblances to 1990, this was 1980. Fresh evidence of Baltimore's plummeting population battered city pride. It has become a decennial ritual.For all the horror stories and gnashing of teeth engendered by the 1990 census, the 1980 head count was even unkinder to Baltimore, save in one respect: People did participate.

WASHINGTON -- What should you believe: the 1990 Census or your own eyes?When it comes to the 98-unit Chesapeake Commons apartments, the old City College building at North Howard and Centre streets, Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke told a congressional subcommittee yesterday that he believes his own eyes.The census indicates that the 5-year-old apartments in downtown Baltimore aren't there, he said."I go past it every day, and it's hard to persuade me it doesn't exist," the mayor said. "My wife is an ophthalmologist, and she does a pretty good job on my eyes."