The Senate conferees eliminated the KellerNichols amendment. and I understand there is to be some controversy about that. The Senate committee took testimony on that matter and it developed that the KellerNichols amendment was unworkable. As a matter of fact. the quota system is very little understood. I have in my hand statement of the quota as it stands at the present time and it shows that a great many of the States now are over their quota. which means that the States under quota get the positions that become vacant under the civilservice law where the quota system applies. which. of course. is only in the departmental service in the District of Columbia. I have had Members come to me within the last hour and say they intend to vote against this report because the KellerNichols amendment was deleted. If they do that. they are not helping the States that are under quota. The positions with which this bill deals are now filled. If you defeat this bill you do not .vacate any of these positions and therefore you have no chance to fill them. You do not put them under the quota system if you defeat this conference report. and therefore you have no opportunity to give them to the States that are under quota. But. if you pass this conference report and the President brings 200.000 people under this bill. 20 percent of them. on the average. will fail to pass either the mental or the physical tests and their positions will be vacated and will go to the States that are under quota. Whenever a position is vacant which is under the quota system. the Civil Service Commission does not certify for that vacancy eligibles from States that are over quota. That is all I am going to say about that at the present. time. except to say that we did persuade the Senate conferees to recede on an amendment placing temporary employees of the Census Bureau on a permanent status. There are more than 8.000 of those employees. and over 50 percent of them come from overquota States and the District of Columbia. so we did save those jobs for you.
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quota system