Borough of Bethel Park v. Stans

319 F. Supp. 971, 1970 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 9477
CourtDistrict Court, W.D. Pennsylvania
DecidedNovember 19, 1970
DocketCiv. A. 70-1049
StatusPublished
Cited by9 cases

This text of 319 F. Supp. 971 (Borough of Bethel Park v. Stans) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, W.D. Pennsylvania primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Borough of Bethel Park v. Stans, 319 F. Supp. 971, 1970 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 9477 (W.D. Pa. 1970).

Opinion

OPINION

GOURLEY, District Judge:

In this civil action, plaintiffs challenge as contrary to the Constitution and Census Acts of the United States certain procedures established by the Director of the Bureau of the Census for the taking of the 1970 Census. Challenged in particular are the procedures whereby college students, members of the Armed Services stationed in the United States, and inmates of institutions are enumerated as inhabitants of the respective places where their colleges, military bases, or institutions are located.

The original plaintiffs are a political subdivision of Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, the President and Mayor of that political subdivision, a member of the House of Representatives of the Genera! Assembly of Pennsylvania and a member of the House of Representatives of the United States who represents one of twenty-seven Congressional Districts within the State of Pennsylvania. Members of the United States House of Representatives representing the remaining twenty-six Congressional Districts within Pennsylvania have been permitted to intervene as party-plaintiffs. The City of Philadelphia has also intervened as a party-plaintiff. The individual plaintiffs bring the action in their official capacities, in their capacities as Pennsylvania residents and voters, and on behalf of all other similarly situated residents and voters. Defendants are the Secretary of the Department of Commerce, the Director of the Bureau of the Census and the Bureau of the Census.

Plaintiffs seek both declaratory and injunctive relief. The Court is asked to declare the practices of the Director of the Bureau of the Census to be violative of Article I, Section 2, Clause 3 of the Constitution, the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment thereto, and the Census Acts of the United States. Plaintiffs request an injunction restraining the Department of Commerce from adopting and promulgating the compilations obtained from the taking of the 1970 Census, restraining the future use of the designated procedures and compelling a re-taking of the 1970 Census.

The matter presently before the Court is plaintiffs’ Motion for a Preliminary Injunction and a Declaratory Judgment. The Court has conducted an evidentiary hearing upon the Motion wherein the testimony of Dr. Conrad F. Taeuber, Associate Director of the Bureau of the Census, was received. Upon review of the evidence, the arguments and briefs of counsel for the respective parties, and the law applicable herein, the Court concludes that injunctive relief should be denied and that a declaratory judgment should be granted in favor of the defendants and against plaintiffs.

*973 The following facts are undisputed. In establishing the methods of enumeration to be utilized in taking the 1970 Census, the Director of the Bureau of the Census has deemed himself governed by Section 2a of Title 2 of the United States Code, which requires the President to submit to Congress on the first day, or within one week thereafter, of the first regular session of the Eighty-second Congress and of each fifth Congress thereafter, a statement “showing the whole number of persons in each State” as ascertained by a decennial census of the population. The phrase “whole number of persons” has been defined historically by the Bureau to include citizens and aliens, persons of voting age and those below voting age, persons who are entitled to vote and those who are not yet entitled to vote, as well as those who have lost the right to vote.

The phrase “whole number of persons in each State” has been interpreted by the Bureau to mean those persons whose usual place of residence was a particular State on the date of the census, including those persons present in a State who had no usual place of residence elsewhere. In the census, each person enumerated in areas within the jurisdiction of the United States is recorded and counted as of his usual place of residence, i. e., the specific address at which he is living on the date of the census. The Bureau’s criteria for determining the usual place of residence is as follows: persons are enumerated at the place in which they generally eat, sleep, and work, with persons who are temporarily absent for a few days or weeks from such usual place of abode being counted as residents of their usual place of abode. The concepts of “domicile” and “legal residence” are not deemed material. Under the above procedure, the Bureau enumerates a person as a resident of a State where he usually resides, regardless of whether or not he is a “domiciliary” or “legal resident” of that State.

Uniformly applying the aforementioned criteria to college students, inmates of institutions, and members of the Armed Services serving at military installations within the United States, the Bureau enumerates these persons respectively as residents of the specific locations where their colleges, institutions, and military installations are located. In the 1940 and previous censuses, college students were counted as residents of their parental homes even though they lived during the better part of the year in the communities where they were attending college. However, the procedure was changed for the 1950 and two subsequent censuses so that college students are now enumerated at the places where they actually live while attending college. Apparently, inmates of institutions and members of the Armed Services serving within the United States always have been enumerated as residents of the places where their institutions and military installations are located.

With respect to- persons abroad, the Bureau utilizes the following procedures. In the 1970 Census, military personnel serving abroad, for the first time, have been allocated back to the States constituting their homes of record as shown on listings provided by the Department of Defense. However, such military personnel are not allocated back to any specific addresses within those States. A similar procedure is followed for other Government personnel serving abroad. Private persons working or living abroad, not merely visiting abroad, are not counted.

Plaintiffs challenge the aforementioned procedures as an abuse of statutorily vested discretion and violative of the Constitution. The challenge is premised upon plaintiffs’ assertion that persons within the aforementioned categories (college students, institutional inmates, military personnel at home and abroad, Government personnel serving abroad, and private persons living and working abroad) are transients on the date of the taking of the census, all, most, or some of whom have an identifiable home to which they will return *974 upon relinquishing their transient status, and within which they will live for the greater duration of the decennial period. Plaintiffs claim that the Bureau’s practice of enumerating these persons as living at their usual places of residence on the date of the census without ascertaining whether these persons, or a relevant percentage of them, have identifiable home residences is an abuse of discretion and unconstitutional. If these persons do have identifiable home residences, plaintiffs argue, the Bureau is duty bound to enumerate them as of such home residences.

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319 F. Supp. 971, 1970 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 9477, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/borough-of-bethel-park-v-stans-pawd-1970.