Utah v. Evans

143 F. Supp. 2d 1290, 2001 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 8800, 2001 WL 709245
CourtDistrict Court, D. Utah
DecidedApril 17, 2001
Docket2:01CV0023B
StatusPublished
Cited by3 cases

This text of 143 F. Supp. 2d 1290 (Utah v. Evans) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, D. Utah primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Utah v. Evans, 143 F. Supp. 2d 1290, 2001 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 8800, 2001 WL 709245 (D. Utah 2001).

Opinions

MEMORANDUM OPINION

STEPHEN H. ANDERSON, Circuit Judge.

By constitutional and statutory mandate, the federal decennial Census is conducted, on behalf of Congress, by the Secretary of Commerce who has, in turn, delegated responsibility for conducting the Census to the Director of the Census Bureau. The “number of persons in each State” enumerated by the Director in each Census is used, inter alia, to apportion among the states seats in the United States House of Representatives.

[1293]*1293In the 2000 decennial Census, the Census Bureau included within its enumeration for apportionment purposes federal employees living overseas, primarily military personnel and their dependents, but excluded all other Americans living overseas. Among those not enumerated were approximately 11,000 missionaries for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (“LDS”) who were overseas from the state of Utah on eighteen-month or twenty-four-month proselytizing or service missions for their church on Census Day 2000 (April 1, 2000). As a result of the apportionment count calculated on the basis of Census 2000, the State of North Carolina, not the State of Utah, was awarded the 435th seat in the House of Representatives.

Plaintiffs, the State of Utah, its governor, and numerous other elected officials, along with four Utah citizens who were abroad serving as LDS missionaries on Census Day 2000, brought this suit against the Secretary of Commerce and the Director of the Census Bureau for injunctive and declaratory relief, asserting that the Census Bureau’s failure to enumerate LDS missionaries living abroad, while including within its enumeration federal employees living abroad, violated various constitutional and statutory provisions. The State of North Carolina and numerous of its elected officials intervened in this action.

This three-judge panel of the United States District Court was convened pursuant to plaintiffs’ request under 28 U.S.C. § 2284. Plaintiffs filed a motion for summary judgment. Defendants filed a motion to dismiss or, alternatively, a cross-motion for summary judgment. Interve-nors filed a cross-motion for summary judgment. All parties have filed responsive pleadings, along with affidavits and other supporting materials. Defendants have filed an administrative record (“A.R.”).

We may grant summary judgment “if the pleadings, depositions, answers to interrogatories, and admissions on file, together with the affidavits, if any, show that there is no genuine issue as to any material fact and that the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law.” Fed.R.Civ.P. 56(c). For the following reasons, we grant defendants’ and interve-nors’ cross-motions for summary judgment, and we deny plaintiffs’ motion for summary judgment.

BACKGROUND

The decennial Census is conducted pursuant to the requirement imposed by Article I of the United States Constitution and the Fourteenth Amendment that seats in the United States House of Representatives be “apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State.” U.S. Const, amend. XIV, § 2; U.S. Const, art. I, § 2, cl. 3. The “counting” of the “number of persons in each State” is accomplished by “actual Enumeration,” conducted every ten years, “in such Manner as [Congress] shall by Law direct.” U.S. Const. art. I, § 2, cl. 3; Franklin v. Massachusetts, 505 U.S. 788, 791, 112 S.Ct. 2767, 120 L.Ed.2d 636 (1992).

Congress, by means of the Census Act, 13 U.S.C. §§ 1-196, has delegated to the Secretary of the Department of Commerce the responsibility to “take a decennial census of population ... in such form and content as he may determine.” 13 U.S.C. § 141(a). The Secretary is assisted in that endeavor by the Director of the Census Bureau who “shall perform such duties as may be imposed upon him by law, regulations, or orders of the Secretary.” 13 U.S.C. § 21. The Supreme Court has acknowledged that “the text of the Constitution vests Congress with virtually unlimited discretion in conducting the decennial” Census and such wide dis[1294]*1294cretion commands extraordinary deference. Wisconsin v. City of New York, 517 U.S. 1, 19, 116 S.Ct. 1091, 134 L.Ed.2d 167 (1996) (emphasis added). Thus, the Secretary’s conduct of the Census must “bear only a reasonable relationship to the accomplishment of an actual enumeration of the population, keeping in mind the constitutional purpose of the census.” Id. at 20, 116 S.Ct. 1091; see also United States Dep’t of Commerce v. Montana, 503 U.S. 442, 464, 112 S.Ct. 1415, 118 L.Ed.2d 87 (1992) (noting that Congress’s “apparently good-faith choice of a method of apportionment of Representatives among the several States ‘according to their respective Numbers’ commands far more deference” than state districting decisions).

Under the Census Act, “[t]he tabulation of total population by States ... as required for the apportionment of Representatives in Congress ... shall be completed within 9 months after the census date and reported by the Secretary to the President of the United States.” 13 U.S.C. § 141(b). Upon receipt of the Secretary’s report, the President:

shall transmit to the Congress a statement showing the whole number of persons in each State ... as ascertained under the ... decennial census of the population, and the number of Representatives to which each State would be entitled under an apportionment of the then existing number of Representatives by the method known as the method of equal proportions.

2 U.S.C. § 2a(a). The Clerk of the House of Representatives then sends to “the executive of each State a certifícate of the number of Representatives to which such State is entitled.” 2 U.S.C. § 2a(b). With respect to Census 2000, the Secretary of Commerce delivered the Census 2000 data to the President on December 28, 2000, and the President, in turn, transmitted the counts to the Clerk of the House of Representatives on January 4, 2001. The Clerk notified Utah of its number of representatives on January 16, 2001.

In conducting the Census, the Census Bureau allocates people to their home states according to their “usual residence.” “The term can mean more than mere physical presence, and has been used broadly enough to include some element of allegiance or enduring tie to a place.” Franklin, 505 U.S. at 804, 112 S.Ct. 2767.

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Related

Utah v. Evans
182 F. Supp. 2d 1165 (D. Utah, 2001)

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Bluebook (online)
143 F. Supp. 2d 1290, 2001 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 8800, 2001 WL 709245, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/utah-v-evans-utd-2001.