Annotations for Geographic: Washington (dc)

From Washington, D.C., Lakshmi Singh has more.

For Latino USA, I'm Lakshmi Singh in Washington.

The Bush administration is nearing a decision on final census numbers. Democrats are urging the president to allow statistical sampling to correct an expected undercount. From Washington, Lisette Olmos reports.

Larry Gonzalez, Washington Office Director of the National Association of Latino-Elected Officials, said proper sampling is crucial and affects not only federal monies and social services, but political redistricting as well.

If statistical methods had been used to make up for the differential undercount, Latino and other minority communities would have had additional opportunities in at least 40 different districts to elect the candidates of their choice.

President Bush has stayed clear of the headcount versus sampling debate, but may finally show his hand when he names a replacement for Kenneth Pruitt, Census Director under the Clinton administration. Bush has agreed to meet with Democrats during their caucus retreat in early February to discuss this and other issues.

For Latino USA, I'm Lisette Olmos in Washington, D.C.

Marisa De Mayo is the regional council for MALDEF in Washington.

Most of the attention has focused on his opposing an African American nominee and an openly gay nominee as well as an Asian American nominee. But it has been less publicized that he also has opposed well-qualified Latino nominees including Judge Sonia Sotomayor as well as Richard Paez who also eventually did get confirmed to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.

Raul Izaguirre of the National Council of La Raza had made the case that Ashcroft's record on issues such as racial profiling, he voted against keeping statistics on it, showed, in Yzaguirre's words, a consistent, aggressive, even hostile opposition to the fundamental civil rights of Hispanic Americans.

NCLR's rights president, Cecilia Muñoz, had concerns about the attorney general's record regarding legislation affecting immigrants.

It's important for people to understand that this is one of many nominations we're going to have to deal with and it sets a very important tone. It sends an extremely important message to President Bush about future appointments at the INS and the associate attorney general positions in the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice. They're only going to want so many fights. So this is a very, very important battle for a variety of reasons.

I understand they have some concerns about certain things that Ashcroft might have, some positions he might have taken 15, 20 years ago.

Lupe Saldana, who served on the Bush-Cheney transition team, says those Latinos who have concerns about the new attorney general really have nothing to worry about.