Representative Ted Poe (R-TX) has reintroduced his bill to make the American Community Survey (ACS) voluntary for the fourth Congress in a row. The 114th Congress version of the bill, H.R. 2255— "To make participation in the American Community Survey voluntary, except with respect to certain basic questions, and for other purposes"—was introduced May 12 with six cosponsors. He presented his rationale for the bill in this May 15 Houston Chronicle op-ed and in this May 16 piece, Efforts to Protect Individual Privacy.
The 113th Congress version of the bill—H.R. 1078—garnered a total of 58 cosponsors after its initial introduction; 112th—H.R. 931, 70; and 111th—H.R. 3131, 35. Congressman Poe's bill was featured in a hearing of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee in the 112th Congress—House Panel holds hearing on making American Community Survey voluntary—and, for a brief time in early 2014, was scheduled for mark-up in the 113th Congress.
Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) introduced companion bills in both the 112th and 113th Congresses—S. 3079 (4 cosponsors) and S. 530 (4 cosponsors), respectively—but hasn't yet introduced a companion bill in this Congress.
The American Community Survey has also been targeted through the appropriations process, mostly recently being the focus of questions from Congressman John Culberson, Chair of the Commerce, Justice, Science (CJS) Appropriations Subcommittee: New Chairman of House Funding Panel for Commerce, Justice, and Science Expresses Concerns on ACS and Census. (His FY16 CJS bill was released May 12 and didn't mention the ACS but the report language—to be released soon—may. Amendments in full committee and/or on House floor are also expected. Another consideration in his FY16 CJS bill is the funding level provided for the Census Bureau: $1.11 billion, $387 million below the President's request. This level, if enacted into law would force the Census Bureau, to make difficult choices regarding the ACS or the 2020 decennial census.)
The ASA has been active with other stakeholders of the American Community Survey to communicate to Congress the importance of a mandatory ACS to smart, efficient government and to economic growth/development. See this one-pager for the talking points on a mandatory ACS used in Hill meetings and this 2010 one-pager on the importance of the ACS.
For more on the ACS, see this new report from the Department of Commerce Economics and Statistics Administration (ESA), The Value of the American Community Survey: Smart Government, Competitive Businesses, and Informed Citizens, and the accompanying blog post from Under Secretary for Economic Affairs Mark Doms.
For more on the dynamics of the ACS in the new Congress, see this February Amstat News article. For actions by the House of Representatives on the ACS in previous Congress, see these blog entries:
For coverage of Canada's experience with replacing its mandatory long-form census with a voluntary survey, see this 5/6/13 blog entry: Results on Data Quality for Newly Voluntary Canadian Long-Form Census Coming In.
For George Will's perspective on the American Community Survey, see this 2013 column, "America, Know Thyself: The American Community Survey benefits us all."
[Update: 5/19/15: See also this May 19 blog post from Terri Ann Lowenthal, An ‘Opt-Out’ Democracy.]
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