Bush: Long Form Is A Drag

Long-Fought Battle Over Sampling Underlies Squabble

(CBS)  George W. Bush says the Census 2000 long form asks such invasive questions, even he would think about skipping it.

The criticism came Thursday at a campaign stop in Milwaukee.

"We want as accurate a count as possible but I can understand why people don't want to give over that information to the government," Bush said. "And if I have the long form, I'm not sure I would either."

The Texas governor didn't explicitly advise people not to complete the form. But he said, "If they're worried about the government intruding into their personal lives, they ought to think about it."

Some Democrats believe the concerns are masking a Republican desire to dampen participation in the once-in-a-decade head count. House Minority Leader Richard Gephardt chided Republicans for telling constituents to ignore what they consider intrusive Census questions.

"The Republicans have been trying to frustrate this census from the beginning," said Gephardt. "They don't want more people counted because they think it serves their political purpose. That's a pretty shoddy reason to do what they're doing."

In Washington Thursday, John Czwartacki, spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, said Lott's office - and at least two House Republicans - had received a number of complaints in recent days about questions on census forms.

Reps. Nick Smith, R-Mich. and Tom Coburn, R-Okla., were specifically critical of the long-form questionnaire, sent to one in six of the country's 115 million households.

Census director Kenneth Prewitt said the long form is an "essential tool" to help communities across the country. Census officials have pointed out that data on participants in the head-count is not shared with other branches of goverment or any other public or private entities.

Questions that some Republicans labeled as intrusive, such as "how old is your home" and "are you a veteran?" are useful to determine how local services are provided, Prewitt said.

There are 53 questions on the long form this year, down from 57 in 1990.

Members of Congress received a detailed list of the questions two years ago from the Census Bureau and had a chance to weigh in at that point, said Rep. Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., ranking member of the House Government Reform Committee's census panel.

Democrats have long supported incorporating a statistical method known as sampling to raw census numbers. Sampling would adjust actual head counts to account for populations with traditionally low response rates, such as minority groups in cities. Republican lawmakers have opposed sampling, fearing it could force a redrawing of boundary lines to their disadvantage.