States face off in census religious-discrimination suit

By The Associated Press

02.23.01

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SALT LAKE CITY — North Carolina — which could lose its new U.S. House seat if Utah prevails in its suit against the Census Bureau — has filed a motion for summary judgment.

Utah's suit, filed Jan. 10, claims that it was denied the congressional seat because its 11,000 Mormon missionaries serving abroad were not counted.

The suit contends the bureau discriminated against the missionaries by not counting them, while it did count federal military and civil-service employees living abroad.

North Carolina had more than 18,000 federal employees living overseas last year, while Utah had just over 3,000. Utah fell 857 residents shy of gaining a congressional seat.

Utah contends the census policy violates the apportionment clause of the Constitution by denying it fair representation and violates First Amendment guarantees by discriminating against members of a church.

The policy "burdens religion by putting prospective [Mormon] missionaries to a Hobson's choice between religious service and the benefits, including in this case an additional congressman, that their continued presence in the state would create," the state wrote late last month in its own motion for summary judgment.

Utah claims that if there's an exemption for secular reasons, the government also has to allow the same exemption for religious groups.

The bureau has "made a value judgment that the reasons for traveling abroad in federal service are of greater import than the reasons for traveling abroad in religious service," the motion said.

But North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper says, "It is our argument that the bureau's decision to limit its count of overseas citizens to (federal) military and civilian employees was valid and constitutional.

"If overseas missionaries from Utah are to be counted, then other missionaries and citizens from North Carolina must also be counted," he said.

North Carolina also argues in the motion filed yesterday in U.S. District Court that the Utah suit is too late.

"The plaintiffs have waited until well after the decisions on the manner, form and conduct of the 2000 Census" were made and after the actual count has occurred, the motion said. Ruling in Utah's favor would necessitate a complete recount, it said.

The North Carolina brief cited a 1992 Supreme Court ruling that upheld the Census Bureau's limiting the overseas count to federal employees. The court called a count of all Americans living abroad "infeasible" and ruled that limiting the scope of the overseas count eliminates the risk of a biased count that would distort the congressional apportionment.

The federal government has not yet filed its response to the suit.