From July 1997 until March 2000, Safavian worked for the House Government Reform Committee where, in March 1998, she was named chief counsel and later deputy staff director for the Subcommittee on the Census. She helped the committee investigate campaign finance issues. During her tenure at the Subcommittee on the Census, Safavian conducted oversight of the Department of Commerce's census operations and participated in negotiations with the administration to resolve the dispute surrounding the use of statistical sampling in the 2000 census.