Where Have All the U.S. ‘Disappeared’ Gone? Ask the Census Bureau : Population: The Commerce Department’s refusal to correct its undercount creates reapportionment nightmares. Poor people suffer the most.

The Commerce Department has, in effect, taken lawmakers hostage. Not only has the keeper of the nation’s population figures refused to adjust its 1990 census numbers to correct an estimated undercount of more than 5 million people, it refuses to release tapes containing the correct data. As a result, state and local governments, under pressure from statutory deadlines, may seriously err in redrawing their political maps.

More important, the Commerce Department’s action means lost billions of dollars for states and municipalities already struggling to balance the needs of a growing population with a shrinking revenue base. Disturbingly, the decision has overtones of racial politics, since the people mostly likely to be uncounted are minorities.

California’s fair share of federal dollars, which depends on a corrected census count, will surely not flow west unless Gov. Pete Wilson, who supports a census adjustment, persuades Commerce Secretary Robert A. Mosbacher to release the tapes. And he had better start lobbying.

In fiscal 1990, more than $1 trillion in federal funds was distributed to the states. Every dollar was allocated on the basis of a head count. Even though California had nearly 12% of the U.S. population, it received only 11.5% of the federal money--a loss of $7.5 billion.

For cities like Los Angeles, the consequences are as serious. A 5% undercount--conservative by most estimates--means that nearly 177,000 people were missed in the census. Since Los Angeles receives about $90 from state and federal funding sources for every adult and child living within city limits, the undercount is costly.

Last year, federal dollars tied to the city’s population totalled roughly $163 million. During the same period, Los Angeles received about $241 million, or 6.6% of all city revenue, from state funds based on population counts. An additional $60 million in census-based grants also boosted city coffers. A 5% undercount would result in a minimal loss to the city of $2 million a year in these funds alone.

Mosbacher justified his refusal to correct the census undercount by citing the uncertainty of demographic analyses and statistical sampling in obtaining more accurate numbers. So he decided to stay with the traditional head-count method used since the census began.

This approach simply doesn’t work for a population increasingly untraditional in ethnic makeup, family structure and lifestyle. It doesn’t work for people who are mobile. It doesn’t work for those who believe the census is an invasion of privacy. It doesn’t work for immigrants who read little or no English. Most of all, it doesn’t work for the poor, who often live in cars, tents, basements, abandoned buildings, garages and other makeshift shelter--places not likely to have a mailing address.

Having anticipated some of these problems, state and local officials were frustrated when the Census Bureau refused to release its mailing lists and street maps for a review of the accuracy of its technical data. Thus, it came as no surprise that in California about 159,000 questionnaires could not be delivered last March. Of these, about half were in Los Angeles.

After estimating a mail-return rate of 70% nationally, the bureau received 65% of its forms back, 10% less than in 1980. Los Angeles fared worse than the national average, with a mail-back rate of 63%. On the Latino Eastside, 60% of the residents returned their forms, while in South-Central Los Angeles, the mail-back rate was a dismal 48%.

The politics of Commerce’s decision isn’t hard to guess: The Republican Administration is certainly not going to make it easier for Democrats to gain more seats in Congress and in the state legislatures. But that may be shortsighted politics.

While Democrats have historically done better than Republicans when the census is adjusted, this may no longer be the case. The additional congressional seat that California would gain from a head-count correction could as easily be Republican as Democrat, depending on how the district is drawn.

Moreover, traditional political coalitions are fraying. The old assumptions that legions of liberal Democrats live in urban areas, while conservative Republicans prefer the suburbs, are proving to be oversimplifications.

In Los Angeles, for example, Asians do not strongly identify with either major political party, even though they are widely perceived as overwhelmingly conservative. Latino voters are as likely to oppose abortion rights as Republican white women are likely to be pro-choice. African-Americans, the most reliable of Democratic voters, are showing fresh signs of divided political loyalties as the debate over Clarence Thomas’ nomination to the Supreme Court unfolds.

But what separates this census from its controversial predecessors, as the one in 1980, is that an undercount, as it works its way through federal and state budgets, could have disastrous effects on a growing segment of the population. Racial and ethnic minorities already make up one-quarter of the U.S. population. In California, they are transforming the social landscape. The people who have been historically undercounted are fast becoming the majority of the population, and this development is not confined to the West Coast.

Ten years into the next century, more than one-third of the nation’s children will be Asian, Latino, African-American or American Indian. But in the eyes of Mosbacher, they might as well not exist, either for purposes of political representation or as needy recipients of public services.

The Commerce Department and, by implication, the Bush Administration are playing a dangerous game. Racial politics not only includes overt actions; it may also take the form of omissions. In this case, 1.5 million African-Americans, 1.2 million Latinos, a quarter-million Asians and nearly 100,000 American Indians were “omitted” from the census.

The stage is set for a battle royale. A trial date for a three-year-old court case challenging the bureau’s refusal to adjust the undercount will be scheduled at the end of this month. Legislators in the middle of redistricting are girding themselves for a slew of lawsuits. The Commerce Department has not heard the last of this issue from minority communities.