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January 10, 1996
Web posted at: 2:45 p.m. EST
From Correspondent Anthony Collings
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The Supreme Court began hearing oral arguments Wednesday morning in a dispute over the 1990 census in which billions of dollars and a shift in political power could be at stake.
The Clinton administration and the states of Wisconsin and Oklahoma are asking the high court to rule that the government need not change the census count. Local governments including New York City, Chicago and Los Angeles say the admitted undercount violates their residents' rights to equal representation.
When census takers calculated the U.S. population in 1990 they missed about 5 million people, largely African-Americans and Hispanics, despite Commerce Department efforts to find people likely to be overlooked. The government admitted it missed about 1.6 percent of the nation's population, including about 4.8 percent of blacks and 5.2 percent of Hispanics.
In New York City alone, nearly a quarter of a million people were not counted. And because the census count plays a fundamental role in how much federal aid cities receive for things such as education, transportation, juvenile justice and housing assistance, New York and the other cities feel they've been shortchanged.
Not only is money at stake. Political power could also change pending the Supreme Court's decision, because the census is the basis for allocating seats in Congress. If the census were adjusted, California and Arizona would each gain one more congressional seat while Wisconsin and Pennsylvania would each lose a seat.
At the time of the undercount, then-Census Director Barbara Everit Bryant urged the figures be adjusted. "I felt we could fix the big problem," Bryant said. "We were missing some African-Americans. We were missing some Hispanics. We knew in large areas where they lived."
But in 1991, the Bush administration commerce secretary, Robert Mosbacher, decided not to adjust the figures, saying the proposed figures appeared less accurate than the original count.
In the dispute, now before the Supreme Court, the Clinton administration contends it is not required by the Constitution to adjust the census even if it's wrong.
Commerce Secretary Ron Brown, who favors adjusting the census but says it is not legally required, adds that what is at stake "is really the authority of government officials to make judgments on such matters, to make decisions. We've got to have a government that functions."
Some civil rights groups disagree. "The fundamental right in being counted and having equal representation in this democracy -- that is the fundamental right that is being violated," said Edward Hailes of the NAACP.
Even if the Supreme Court decides the undercount was legal, the Census Bureau says it plans to use adjusted figures in the next count, in the year 2000.
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