City of Los Angeles v. United States Department of Commerce

Opinion by Judge FERGUSON; Dissent by Judge REINHARDT.

Various municipalities and officials (“Appellants”) filed the instant lawsuit against the Department of Commerce and Secretary of Commerce Donald Evans to compel the Secretary to adopt statistically adjusted population data as the official Census 2000 for redistricting purposes. Secretary Evans decided against its use based on the recommendation of a committee of senior Census Bureau officials and statisticians who, after extensive study, expressed serious concerns regarding possible flaws in the statistical (or sampling) methodology.

The District Court rejected Appellants’ claim that Secretary Evans’ decision not to use the adjusted data (hereinafter “adjustment decision”) violated 13 U.S.C. § 195 , which requires the Secretary of Commerce to use “sampling” in conducting the census if “he considers it feasible.” The District Court found moot Appellants’ claim that Secretary Evans violated the notiee-and-comment requirements of the Administrative Procedure Act (“APA”) in revoking former Secretary of Commerce William Daley’s delegation of the adjustment decision to the Director of the Bureau of Census. We affirm.

I.…

dissenting.

Section 195 of the Census Act requires that, for purposes other than apportionment, the Secretary of Commerce “shall” authorize the use of statistical sampling methods to compensate for errors in the census “if he considers it feasible.” 13 U.S.C. § 195 . The majority approves the Secretary’s decision not to authorize statistical sampling, although the record shows that the Secretary did not consider whether such sampling was feasible, or at least did not base his decision on that consideration, as the statute requires. Furthermore, even if the Secretary had considered whether sampling was feasible, he could not have reached the conclusion that he did under a reasonable definition of the word “feasible.”

No' census has fever succeeded in counting every person residing in the United States. The 1990 census, according to the Census Bureau’s estimate, resulted in an undercount of 1.8%, or 4.7 million people. BUREAU OF THE CENSUS, U.S. DEP’T OF COMMERCE, REPORT TO CONGRESS — THE PLAN FOR CENSUS 2000, at 2 (revised Aug. 1997)[herein-after PLAN FOR CENSUS 2000], Studies by the Bureau since 1940 have also shown that, decade after - decade, some groups of people are much…