California IN BRIEF : SACRAMENTO : Altered Census Tally Won’t Be Withheld

The U.S. Department of Commerce has abandoned its attempt to keep from the public an adjusted 1990 census count that includes about 1 million Californians missed in the federal government’s official tally of the state’s population, Assembly Speaker Willie Brown said. Brown filed suit in 1991 to obtain the data, which he had hoped to use to guide the once-a-decade redrawing of political district boundaries. But the federal government refused to release the numbers, forcing the state to use the official census count instead. The bigger figure is thought to include large numbers of Latinos and African-Americans. The adjusted figures, had they been used for the state redistricting, could have prevented the shift of at least one Assembly district from central Los Angeles to the suburbs. But Brown will not challenge the district boundaries used in the November elections, an aide said.