SACRAMENTO – Assemblymember Marc Berman (D-Palo Alto), Senator Dr. Richard Pan (D-Sacramento), and Senator Thomas Umberg (D-Santa Ana) are convening a joint hearing of the Assembly Select Committee on the Census and the Senate Select Committee on the 2020 United States Census.
“California has made a significant investment in preparing for the 2020 Census, and state, regional, and community leaders have been collaborating over the last year to come up with a strategy to ensure every Californian is counted,” said Assemblymember Berman. “With a year to go, it’s critically important that we work even harder to reach out to our hard-to-count communities. The stakes are too high not to.”
One year before the federal decennial census, the hearing serves to update members of the Legislature and the public on the state’s preparation efforts thus far and explore how California can further prepare to ensure a complete and accurate count of all California residents.
Representatives from the California Complete Count – Census 2020 Office (California Census Office) are joining with partners from county government and regional community-based programs to share details about the parallel planning that is underway to reach all Californians and ensure full participation in the 2020 Census.
“We need to be sure everyone is counted, because for every person undercounted, California and local governments will lose significant federal funding and our voices won’t be heard through representation in government,” said Dr. Richard Pan. “As we confront the mammoth task of counting all people living in California, the work we do now to prepare and the resources we devote to the effort will be instrumental to an accurate census.”
On April 13, 2018, Governor Brown issued an executive order (B-49-18), establishing the California Complete Count Committee to lead the state’s census preparation efforts. State leaders have made a significant commitment to support statewide census outreach and communication efforts by investing $100.3 million toward strategies and activities that will help ensure an accurate and successful count in California. Governor Newsom’s FY 2019-20 proposed budget includes an additional $54 million to bolster the state’s efforts. Funding will be divided for a statewide media campaign, including local ethnic media, to help close any gaps in especially vulnerable and hard-to-count communities and distribution to regional, county, tribal, and local government for outreach and associated programmatic costs.
“We are grateful for the investment that California has made to support census outreach,” said Senator Umberg. “Having an accurate count is critical to ensure that California receives its fair share and that we receive adequate representation.”
Last year, the California Census Office convened a series of meetings throughout the state to provide information about the state’s census outreach strategies and facilitate local planning for the 2020 Census.
Informed by those meetings, the California Census Office is developing a statewide community-engagement campaign that supplements the United States Census Bureau’s efforts and is intended to reach the hardest-to-count communities throughout California.
Contact: Kaitlin Curry, (916) 319-2024