at 9:00 eastern and our website cspan.org/cases. you can download the 30-minute landmark cases podcast at cspan.org. the u.s. census burreau is preparing for the upcoming 2020 u.s. census. among the panelists were john thompson and the former u.s. census burr--

all right, why don't we go ahead and get started. hello everyone, for our guests, welcome to georgetown law. we are here today learning of the challenges facing census 2020. the constitution mandates for the purposes of representations in the house of representatives. during the first congress, james madison recognized that the census allowed for data driven. he encouraged congress to ask questions to the census so congress can debate and decide on facts instead of assertion and conjecture. today we have a highly esteem panel to speak about these challenges and some of the consequences of the enumeration.

first, we have director john h. thompson. he's the executive director of the consult of professionalism. he has more than 30 years of experience working at the u.s. census bureau including at its top post. from august 2013 to june 2017, he serves as a census' bureau director, before serving as director, he served people for 27 years in various positions at the census bureau including as an associate director responsible for all aspects of the 2000 census. director thompson has hold multiple positions of distinctions. he served for five years as president and ceo at the university of chicago. he was a member of the committee on national statistics at the

national academy of sciences. he served in two panels related to the 2020 census. he participated in the cn stat panel and the program of valuations and experience and on the panel reviewing the 2020 sen census. >> terri-anne serves 14 years as staff director of the house and subcommittee. since leaving the hill, terry-anne has remained engaged on the census issue. she served on the obama transition team. she advised a wide range of policies and operational issues including philanthropy and civil rights advocates and states and

local governments and business and data users. importa she's an alumni of georgetown. let me say welcome back. >> professor gupta is co-consecutive, he serves as an adjunct professor as law. he counts everyone in the digital age and the implications of technology use and the 2020 census. it could be found on the table outside and online. prior to joining georgetown law, he helps as a congressional aid and multi policy organizations. he serves on the house and ways and means committee. later he became senior policy advisers. he also serves on the national

social assurances, board of the directors. he finally professor joshua gil ter, the executive director of the institution of advocacy and protection of georgetown law where he's also a visiting professor of law. >> joshua led a team offering a letter to secretary wilbur ross highlighting constitutional and statutory issues of the administration failure. joshua serves as senior director at the national security at council staff. joshua also serves to justice

steven brian and was editor and chief. thank you very much for participating on the panel today. welcome to georgetown. >> why don't we do ahead and get started with director john h. thompson. >> thank you, john. so, i would like to do three things, talk about why the census is so important. talk a little bit about what's different of the 2020 census as opposed to prooeevious census a laying the ground work and my fellow panelists are covering much more details. why is the census important and we heard that it is the bases of reapportion the congress and that's a constitutional mandate. the data from the census are used to support fair redistricting and every state uses those data, although not every state is required to.

the census results or use, allocate over $600 billion in federal funding, federal funding every year. the private secotor relies on te american community surveys in making a number of decisions, basically, it drives private sector and investments and growth. every data collection activity for the most part is done in the united states, collecting data from household and population surveys like the american community survey and the national health and interview survey and the current population survey which puts out on unemployment. all those surveys are made accurate by the controls that are used by census and which is why they are accurate. that's why there is a lot of

concerns about potential for an under count in the census because an under count in the census or a lack of reputation of po-- redistricting or fund allocatio allocations, they would be with us for ten years in the data and the lack of representation that we carry through. that's why it is important to get the 2020 census right. what's different about the 2020 census? to talk about that, we have to understand that the basic census process until today was essentially started in the 1970 census which you prepare the address list and you mail out the questionnaire to every house h hold list. information was collected electronically off of those questionnaires and then the most expensive and difficult part of the census took place and that

was going tout collect the information from those that did not mail back or self-respond. that operation was paper and pencil and it had been paper and pencil until the census. for this census, the census bureau is looking at primarily three different innovations to detect the census. the first is in terms of preparing the address list, they don't have to walk the entire country anymore, update the address list because of the advent of this and of tools and materials which would let them affect but doing it in an office census. believe me if there is any doubt of a complete list, going out and looking at it in person. the other area that they're using is the internet. they're allowing response by the internet for the first time. now, they also understand, believe me that not everyone has

access to the internet so, they offer response by a paper questionnaire and for the first time they also offer response by telephone. they understand that but they do hope that a large part of the american population response by the internet because that'll be reducing data much more timely and much less expensive. the final change for the 2020 census deals with how you collect the information from those individuals that don't self-respond. for this census, the census bureau has found that using mobile technology in conjunction with a smart phone like this but i think it is pretty -- it will work very, very well for the census. it is ten questions and they pit on a smart phone very well of the census. when you have mobile technology, you can do a lot of things to effectively manage your work

force. you would know if that i are in the area or if they are filling out the questionnaires quickly or slowly. you can do a lot of things that enhances the quality of the wilhelms enhances. let me just say that if you look at some other data and you see the cost of the census, you see it is going up exponentially with the 2010 census. the reason for that has been as the population has gotten more complex and we are using a paper/pencil method, your only solution is you have to throw more people at it and hire a lot more people and build more infrastructure. that's what's been raising the cost of the census. so the census bureau is looking

to get significant cost savings by using these alternatives. initially the census bureau was estimating they'll be able to do the census under $12.5 billion compares to the cost of competing the census in 2020. which would have been a better $5 billion savings since then. and i think we'll talk about that and some more of the savings have eroded. we also say one they think that it is very important of the 2020 census. that's in the 2000s census, the bureau started looking out to the american population of two vehicles. one was paid advertising and which was national and local. the other was a program that they callsh partnership which where they hire a number of

individuals to work with local community. they want to get two messages out, one is why is it important to respond to your community where you live and that considerably depending on communities. the other message is your data is confidential and the census bureau does not share with anyone and not the irs and not the cia, no one. and so, it seems like that program worked in 2000s and the 2020 census. we saw dramatic decrease in the under count of certain population groups. for example, in the 1990 census did not have that. the hispanic population was about 5%. that dropped under 2% for the 2010 census which is -- well, it is not perfect but it is a dramatic gain of the accuracy. those programs are incredibly

important to get inaccurate count because the message that they get out of. so where are we now? >> this decade, the census bureau from 2012 and 2017 in terms of the funding they request from congress is $200 million below that level. my colleagues are going to talk about that in much more detail. but, what they did was force the census bureau to make some decisions to prioritize. the census bureau believes they had the prioritized on developing the automated system because they did not think it is possible to do a paper and pencil census anymore in today's world. so they did prioritize on that and the effect is without the full funding of certain operations had to get pushed back in terms of the modernization and some will not be modernized and they have to

defer activities on advertising and partnership program which is also a big concern. so, they are poised to do an end task in 2018 and in fact i think probably this week, materials would get mailed out early next week to strike the process. but, they're at a critical point and my colleagues will talk about the funding issues and the importance of starting that advertising program. but, they cannot delay anymore and the funding for census cannot be delayed anymore. so -- >> thank you very much director thompson. i think you mentioned that the census are used for a portion of redistricting purposes, needs to

be clear that everything from congress down to school boards and city councils and etcetera and it reaches all levels of government? >> exactly. >> i think you set out with terry-anne. >> thank you john and john. thank you for having me and ill like to see what my tuition dollars paid for because none of these were here when i graduated many moons ago. i want to talk about two things, getting into more depths of based on what john said. the question is does the census bureau actually get it right? >> so it tries. and the census generally gotten more accurate overtime as i think john mentioned but it is not an equal opportunity in numeration, it does not count

all population groups equally well. people at color are missed at a d disproportionately higher rates. while non-hispanic/whites and higher income house hholds were over count and also immigrants and single households and young and mobile adults. i see a few in here are all at risk of not being counted and most notably children under the age of five have the highest under count of any age group. in 2010, in most of the nations large east counties, one and ten children, young children were not counted. and black and hispanic young children miss twice the rates of

other young cheildren. now at the national level, wilhelms census under counts and over counts cancel each other out. the last census looked darn near perfect. we don't use census number at the national level, right? david

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