Congressman Steven Horsford and Congressional Black Caucus Demand Accountability and Transparency from Census Director Dillingham

Washington, D.C. — Today, the Congressional Black Caucus, led by Congressman Steven Horsford (NV-04), Chair of the Congressional Black Caucus 2020 Census Taskforce, met with Census Bureau Director Steven Dillingham as a part of the taskforce's mission to hold the Trump administration accountable to every American resident.

"Since 1790, our Constitution has called for the counting of every person in our country. However, more than 200 years later, we are still unable to have a complete count in the Census, and communities of color are among those that are the most historically underrepresented. This year, I am working to ensure that my constituents in Nevada all accounted for in the upcoming Census and that every community is properly counted to receive the funding and representation they are owed," Congressman Horsford said. "To that end, I requested this meeting with Director Dillingham to hold the Census Bureau accountable to the people that it is Constitutionally mandated to count. With $800 billion allocated from Census data, there is too much on the line to leave the Census Bureau unchecked."

Last year, the taskforce succeeded in securing approximately $5 billion in additional funding for the Census, bringing the total to $7.3 billion up from the initial Bipartisan Budget Act request of $2.5 billion. Now, the Congressman and Members of the Congressional Black Caucus met with Director Dillingham to ensure those funds are being properly allocated and that the bureau is prepared for the count beginning next month and to address the needs of historically undercounted communities.

"Today, Members of the Congressional Black Caucus met with Census Director Steven Dillingham to discuss the progress that the agency is making to count all Americans, and to reduce the undercounting of the Black population in the U.S. When our community is undercounted, we lose critical federal dollars that support our businesses, roads, and healthcare among other vital resources," Congresswoman Karen Bass, Chair of the Congressional Black Caucus, said. "That's why, the CBC Census 2020 taskforce is working to provide oversight of the Census Bureau and engage with the public and private sectors."

The legacy of undercounting African American and other hard-to-count communities in the census dates to the first census count in 1790. During the writing of the U.S. Constitution in 1787, delegates debated over the number of seats in the House of Representatives. In 1790, a compromise between the northern and southern states resulted in a decision for enslaved Africans to be counted as three-fifths of a person for Congressional representation and taxation.

African Americans are still undercounted in the census in current times. According to the Decennial Statistics Studies Division of the Department of Commerce, in 1990 the agency estimated "a net undercount of about 4 percent for African Americans." This number was lowered to "2 percent – around 800,000 people – in the 2000 Census, but the most recent Census in 2010 showed no significant change to the black undercount, despite the net undercount being the lowest it had been in history."