Census Director Resigns Amid Sampling Furor

Martha Farnsworth Riche, who spent most of last year battling with Congress over how the 2000 census will be conducted, resigned Monday as the Census Bureau’s director--a move likely to throw the count further into disarray.

Riche, appointed by President Clinton in 1994, will leave office Jan. 30.

Although her departure is not expected to affect a census dress rehearsal planned for April in three sites--including Sacramento--experts said it could jeopardize the decennial count two years from now if the Senate refuses to approve Clinton’s choice to replace her.

Congressional Republicans and the White House are at odds over whether to use a technique known as sampling--which uses statistics to round out the head count and account for any residents who might have been missed. The GOP’s House leadership has led the fight against sampling, privately worrying that it would result in more people being counted in mostly Democratic large cities. That, in turn, would change the allocation of House seats.

Although the Senate ultimately endorsed sampling, and it still may be used in 2000, some observers predicted that sampling could become the litmus test in the confirmation process and jeopardize the decennial count.

“Bill Lann Lee has certainly discovered what it’s like to be a nominee whose views reflect those of the president” but not those of Congress, one Census Bureau official said--referring to the Los Angeles lawyer whose nomination as the Justice Department’s assistant attorney general for civil rights was thwarted by Senate opposition to administration affirmative action policies. Lee currently is serving in the post on an acting basis.

While Riche made no mention of the fight with Congress in her decision to leave, observers said that the conflict was more than she banked on when she took the job and that she was tired.

“I believe she just wanted to do a fair and accurate 2000 census, but she was being forced to jump through all sorts of unnecessary political hoops,” said Rep. Carolyn B. Maloney (D-N.Y.), who praised Riche’s professionalism.

Riche’s resignation was greeted with dismay even by those who differed with her on the sampling issue.

“I have expressed my concern that we are rapidly heading toward a failed census in 2000. . . . Riche’s sudden departure adds to my anxiety,” said Rep. Dan Miller (R-Fla.), who heads the House census subcommittee.

The use of sampling is crucial to California, which experts estimate lost $500 million in federal funding and one congressional seat because the method was not employed in the 1990 census, resulting in a severe undercount in the state.

But the method took on dramatic political proportions last fall when the GOP fiercely opposed it. Publicly, the party opposed it as “a risky statistical scheme” that violates the constitutional requirement that each of America’s residents be counted. Congressional sources have said that, behind closed doors, the political concerns were paramount, and that late last year House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) vowed: “It is our clear intent to kill it in 1999.”

Clinton and House GOP leaders reached a compromise that allowed sampling to be tried in the Sacramento dress rehearsal while a traditional head count was employed elsewhere in April. The truce put off until next year a final decision on which method will win out.

Riche, 58, a professional demographer who helped found Demographic magazine before taking her census job, traveled the country on an exhaustive schedule last year to explain the sampling technique.

While the truce temporarily appeased both sides, it also greatly complicated a process that is supposed to be apolitical.

“All of which could be a little wearing on a person,” one Democratic staffer noted Monday.

Riche said of her future, “I plan to go home and give myself a nine-month sabbatical,” adding that she wants to resume writing and lecturing on demographic issues.

A Commerce Department spokesman said that Deputy Census Director Brad Huther was expected to take charge pending the selection of a new director.