WASHINGTON, D.C. -- "Mr. Blackwell spent this past weekend in California busy campaigning for his Republican presidential hopeful, Steve Forbes. Maybe if Mr. Blackwell were focused on attending to just one of his two day jobs, he would have noticed that his office released an irrelevant report to the Congress on the 2000 Census. There are three reasons why this report is irrelevant :

"First, Mr. Blackwell's report is irrelevant since it centers on a criticism of the 1990 Census post-enumeration survey. Over the past 10 years, Census Bureau professionals, along with the National Academy of Sciences and independent experts, have analyzed and dissected the strengths and weaknesses of the 1990 Census more times than Mr. Blackwell could imagine. The Accuracy and Coverage Evaluation (ACE) to be used in 2000 will be twice the size of 1990 post-enumeration survey, and will incorporate ten years of research and advances in methodology. It will allow the Census to correct the historic racial differential undercount that disproportionately misses America's Blacks, Hispanics, Asians and American Indians.

"Second, Mr. Blackwell's report criticizes the accuracy of statistical methods at the block level. His report fails to mention that old census methods are just as inaccurate at the block level. The question should be which set of numbers is more accurate -- the adjusted or the unadjusted. The simple fact, even acknowledged in this report, is that the adjusted numbers get us a more accurate picture of the population.

"Third, this report focuses almost exclusively on adjustment at the block level -- a level of geography which is hardly used. Instead, blocks are put together to form larger areas, such as neighborhoods, towns, cities, congressional districts, and states. For these larger areas, which are important for the allocation of program funds and political representation, adjusted census data will be much more accurate."

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