Margaret Carter and Susan Castillo v. United States Department of Commerce, Washington, D.C. 20230

The Department of Commerce (“DOC”) appeals the district court’s grant of summary judgment ordering it to disclose statistically adjusted data generated as part of Census 2000 in response to plaintiffs’ Freedom of Information Act (“FOIA”) request. DOC challenges the district court’s finding that the adjusted data are neither predecisional nor deliberative as required to permit nondisclosure under the “deliberative process” privilege in Exemption 5 to FOIA. We affirm.

I. FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

It is generally accepted that the decennial census results in a net under-count of the population, particularly with respect to minority and disadvantaged groups. The federal government recognizes that the undercount has significant consequences for affected communities. Thus, the Bureau of Census (“Bureau”), an agency of DOC, has endeavored to obtain more accurate population estimates for purposes of intra-state redistricting and allocation of federal funds by generating adjusted census figures through statistical extrapolation based on targeted surveys of representative population blocks.

During Census 1990, the Bureau employed a large-scale statistical adjustment for…