CITIZENS AGAINST GOVERNMENT WASTE APPLAUDS SUPREME COURT RULING ON CENSUS SAMPLING
Press Release
For Immediate Release | Contact: Jim Campi or Aaron Taylor |
January 25, 1999 | (202) 467-5300 |
WASHINGTON – By a vote of 5-4, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled today that the Clinton Administration plan to use sampling in the 2000 census is in violation of federal census law. Thomas A. Schatz, President of Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW), issued the following statement in response to the ruling:
“The Constitution requires a census by enumeration, or actual count of everyone in the country, every ten years. In its decision today, the Supreme Court wisely ruled that the statistical sampling techniques concocted by the Clinton Administration would violate census law.
“This sampling scheme would be similar to a public opinion poll. This poll would use information from a group of people to make projections about the population as a whole. Considering the President’s penchant for polling every possible public policy position, it’s no surprise that the White House wants to take this census shortcut. Sampling would, in effect, computer-generate people for the administration’s big spending programs.
“Since an overwhelming number of the social spending programs in this country are tied to the census numbers, a sample-driven census could mean an unstoppable and automatic flood of the most wasteful federal spending programs. It could also unleash another flood – big-spending representatives elected from districts rigged by sampling-inflated numbers.
“Americans deserve a lot better than sampling – they deserve an actual head count that doesn’t count imaginary people. The 600,000 members of Citizens Against Government Waste salute the Supreme Court for upholding the Constitution, and for standing up for limited, responsible government.”