2000 Census

WASHINGTON -- Negotiators from the White House and Speaker Newt Gingrich's office have reached a tentative agreement that would allow the Census Bureau to test its hotly debated new method for estimating the country's population, administration and congressional officials said yesterday.The deal, the details of which must be fleshed out and sold to Republican and Democratic members of the House, would allow the Census Bureau to test the use of statistical sampling next year, a procedure the bureau would like to use for the next census, in 2000.

ALBANY, N.Y. -- Five decades of population decline is over.Experts say Albany's population will level off at slightly more than 100,000 in the 2000 census, narrowly averting getting shoved into the urban minor leagues.The city isn't going to experience anything like dynamic growth, but experts believe the population has stabilized. There are several reasons for the turnaround. The number of people leaving the city isn't increasing. Experts also cited growing immigrant and minority communities, as well as a steady influx of college and university students.

WASHINGTON -- House Speaker Newt Gingrich has filed his much anticipated lawsuit seeking to prevent the Clinton administration from using a new and controversial method for estimating the country's population in the 2000 census.The suit, filed Friday in U.S. District Court in Washington, states that the method, known as statistical sampling, violates the Constitution and the federal Census Act. The suit asks that the decision of the court be immediately appealed to the Supreme Court."The House seeks a prompt and expeditious resolution on the merits of your administration's sampling plan because it is clearly in the national interest to resolve the issue now, before the 2000 census begins," Gingrich said in a letter to President Clinton.

THE CENSUS that takes place every 10 years has evolved into one of those issues that stirs passions. That is because the census touches on so many matters, ranging from serious to momentous. It influences how government dollars will be spent, determines the number of seats each state will have in Congress, and, according to a recent report, highlights the steady, shifting demographics of this region.The Bureau of the Census acknowledges it has not counted every head in the past. In 1970, the estimated undercount for African Americans was 6.5 percent; the latest census, 1990, did not count an estimated 8 million people and miscounted another 4 million.

WASHINGTON -- Splitting 5-4, the Supreme Court yesterday rejected the Clinton administration's plan to use statistical sampling to make up for individuals who get overlooked in the 2000 census.The court ruled that the allocation of House of Representatives seats after the next census must be based on a head count.The decision was a major setback for cities, for the Democratic Party and for a key part of its following: minorities, who are more often missed in counts by census-takers. The "undercount" in the 1990 census left out more than 4 million people, mainly urban minorities and children, according to the Census Bureau.

Wearing dark suits and trailed by television cameras, the two men strode to the front of the room, smiling and greeting their audience like the seasoned politicians they are. But Baltimore County Executive C. A. Dutch Ruppersberger and Rep. Benjamin L. Cardin had no intention of delivering a dry address on tax cuts, health policy or the race for president. Their visit to Chantel Harris' fourth-grade class at Owings Mills Elementary School yesterday was designed to impart a message of civic duty and representation specifically tailored for a group of 22 well-behaved 9- and 10-year-olds.

Barbara Bryant, director of the Census Bureau, was absolutely right when she said, "We cannot afford to plan to take the next census as we have taken recent censuses." Certainly not the way the bureau took the 1990 one.To begin with, the 1990 census was, at $2.6 billion, far too expensive. The General Accounting Office told Congress last month that the 1990 census cost 65 percent more in constant dollars than the 1980 census. Of course, there were more people to count, but the 1990 cost per household was $25, compared to $20 (constant dollars)

The number of American women who are raising children without a husband present grew by more than 25 percent during the 1990s, according to data released today from the 2000 census. The census in April counted nearly 7.6 million households headed by women with children younger than 18 at home, but no husband. There were just over 6 million in 1990. The 10-year rate of increase was nearly twice the 13 percent growth of the U.S. population as a whole. "That is definitely a huge trend, and it is worldwide," said sociologist Steven P. Martin of the University of Maryland, College Park.

IT IS NOT a pretty fight, but the outcome will be significant. It is a tale that is a blot on Republicans and the Republic.Census takers in 1990 failed to count 8.4 million Americans while double-counting another 4.4 million.They missed 4.4 percent of all African Americans, 3 percent of Latinos, 12.2 percent of Native Americans and 0.7 percent of whites -- mostly poor, homeless, young, recent immigrants or urban dwellers. A study, commissioned by Congress, pointed out that the 2000 census will be worse if the same methodology is used.

With the 2000 census on the horizon and federal dollars at stake, local officials are scrambling to make sure every household in Carroll County is on the U.S. Census Bureau's street address list.In recent months, county planners and town leaders have been poring over Census Bureau data and going door to door, double-checking the federal agency's address list."The pre-review is an exhaustive process that requires a lot of man-hours, and requires employees to pore over data," said Steven C. Horn, county planning director.