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91_SR0039
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1 SENATE RESOLUTION
2 WHEREAS, The U.S. Constitution requires an actual
3 enumeration of the population every ten years, and entrusts
4 Congress with overseeing all aspects of each decennial
5 enumeration; and
6 WHEREAS, The sole constitutional purpose of the decennial
7 census is to apportion the seats in Congress among the
8 several states; and
9 WHEREAS, An accurate and legal decennial census is
10 necessary to properly apportion U.S. House of Representatives
11 seats among the 50 states and to create legislative districts
12 within the states; and
13 WHEREAS, An accurate and legal decennial census is
14 necessary to enable states to comply with the constitutional
15 mandate of drawing state legislative districts within the
16 states; and
17 WHEREAS, Article 1, Section 2 of the U.S. Constitution,
18 in order to ensure an accurate count and to minimize the
19 potential for political manipulation, mandates an "actual
20 enumeration" of the population, which requires a physical
21 headcount of the population and prohibits statistical
22 guessing or estimates of the population; and
23 WHEREAS, Title 13, Section 195 of the U.S. Code,
24 consistent with this constitutional mandate, expressly
25 prohibits the use of statistical sampling to enumerate the
26 U.S. population for the purpose of reapportioning the U.S.
27 House of Representatives; and
28 WHEREAS, Legislative redistricting conducted by the
29 states is a critical subfunction of the constitutional
30 requirement to apportion representatives among the states;
31 and
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1 WHEREAS, The United States Supreme Court, in No. 98-404,
2 Department of Commerce, et al. v. United States House of
3 Representatives, et al., together with No. 98-564, Clinton,
4 President of the United States, et al. v. Glavin, et al.
5 ruled on January 25, 1999 that the Census Act prohibits the
6 Census Bureau's proposed uses of statistical sampling in
7 calculating the population for purposes of apportionment; and
8 WHEREAS, In reaching its findings, the United States
9 Supreme Court found the use of statistical procedures to
10 adjust census numbers would create a dilution of voting
11 rights for citizens in legislative redistricting, thus
12 violating legal guarantees of "one-person, one-vote"; and
13 WHEREAS, Consistent with this ruling and the
14 constitutional and legal relationship of legislative
15 redistricting by the states to the apportionment of the U.S.
16 House of Representatives, the use of adjusted census data
17 would raise serious questions of vote dilution and violate
18 "one-person, one-vote" legal protections, thus exposing the
19 State Illinois to protracted litigation over legislative
20 redistricting plans at great cost to the taxpayers of the
21 State of Illinois, and likely result in a court ruling
22 invalidating any legislative redistricting plan using census
23 numbers that have been determined in whole or in part by the
24 use of random sampling techniques or other statistical
25 methodologies that add or subtract persons to the census
26 counts based solely on statistical inference; and
27 WHEREAS, Consistent with this ruling, no person
28 enumerated in the census should ever be deleted from the
29 census enumeration; and
30 WHEREAS, Consistent with this ruling, every reasonable
31 and practical effort should be made to obtain the fullest and
32 most accurate count of the population as possible, including
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1 appropriate funding for state and local census outreach and
2 education programs, as well as a provision for post census
3 local review; therefore, be it
4 RESOLVED, BY THE SENATE OF THE NINETY-FIRST GENERAL
5 ASSEMBLY OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS, that we call on the Bureau
6 of the Census to conduct the 2000 decennial census consistent
7 with the aforementioned United Supreme Court ruling and
8 constitutional mandate, which require a physical headcount of
9 the population and bars the use of statistical sampling to
10 create or in any way adjust the count; and be it further
11 RESOLVED, That the Illinois Senate opposes the use of
12 P.L. 94-171 data for state legislative redistricting based on
13 census numbers that have been determined in whole or in part
14 by the use of statistical inferences derived by means of
15 random sampling techniques or other statistical methodologies
16 that add or subtract persons to the census counts; and be it
17 further
18 RESOLVED, That the Illinois Senate demands that it
19 receive P.L. 94-171 data for legislative redistricting
20 identical to the census tabulation data used to apportion
21 seats in the U.S. House of Representatives consistent to the
22 aforementioned United States Supreme Court ruling and
23 constitutional mandate, which require a physical headcount of
24 the population and bars the use of statistical sampling to
25 create or in any way adjust the count; and be it further
26 RESOLVED, That the Illinois Senate urges Congress, as the
27 branch of government assigned the responsibility of
28 overseeing the decennial enumeration, to take whatever steps
29 are necessary to ensure that the 2000 decennial census is
30 conducted fairly and legally; and be it further
31 RESOLVED, That a copy of this resolution be presented to
32 the Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, the
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1 Majority Leader of the U.S. Senate, the Vice President of the
2 United States, and the President of the United States.