US Restores Census Funding

US MR associations including CMOR are celebrating victory in convincing a House and Senate conference committee to approve around $812m in federal spending for the U.S. Census Bureau in Fiscal Year 2006. Budget cuts adopted in September were seen as damaging to the Bureau's capacity to collect and report information.

The full House of Representatives passed the House bill including the restored Census funding with a vote of 397-19.

CMOR was an official partner of the Census Bureau in actively educating respondents and encouraging participation during the 2000 Census. More recently, CMOR worked in conjunction with AAPOR and other industry associations, as well as other stakeholders who formed the U.S. Census Project.

The Census Bureau conducts more than 100 surveys every year, in addition to the major work of the 10-yearly census of the population and censuses of economic activity and state and local governments every five years.

CMOR Director of Operations Donna Gillin says the Bureau 'provides crucial data, records, and other information to a wide array of research-related interests. Beyond the marketing and opinion research profession, the data from the Census is critical to local, state and federal government, diverse commercial interests, academia, and many non-profit organizations'.

CMOR's Board of Directors Co-Chair Howard Gershowitz says the successful strategy had three prongs: 'We were proactive in lobbying the offices of all 26 conferees; we launched a member letter-writing campaign; and we had strong alliances with other groups for whom a fully funded U.S. Census is critical'.

CMOR is online at www.cmor.org

Acronyms:
CMOR - Council for Marketing and Opinion Research
AAPOR - American Association for Public Opinion Research..

All articles 2006-23 written and edited by Mel Crowther and/or Nick Thomas, 2024- by Nick Thomas, unless otherwise stated.