804
Opinion of the Court
suasive, Bowsher v. Synar, 478 U. S. 714, 723-724 (1986), appellees argue that the Secretary should have allocated the overseas employees to their overseas stations, because those were their usual residences.
The appellants respond, on the other hand, that the allocation of employees temporarily stationed overseas to their home States is fully compatible with the standard of "usual residence" used in the early censuses. We review the dispute to the extent of determining whether the Secretary's interpretation is consistent with the constitutional language and the constitutional goal of equal representation. See Department of Commerce v. Montana, 503 U. S., at 459.
"Usual residence" was the gloss given the constitutional phrase "in each State" by the first enumeration Act and has been used by the Census Bureau ever since to allocate persons to their home States. App. 173-174. 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. The first enumeration Act itself provided that "every person occasionally absent at the time of the enumeration [shall be counted] as belonging to that place in which he usually resides in the United States." Act of Mar. 1, 1790, § 5, 1 Stat. 103. The Act placed no limit on the duration of the absence, which, considering the modes of transportation available at the time, may have been quite lengthy. For example, during the 36-week enumeration period of the 1790 census, President George Washington spent 16 weeks traveling through the States, 15 weeks at the seat of Government, and only 10 weeks at his home in Mount Vernon. He was, however, counted as a resident of Virginia. T. Clemence, Place of Abode, reproduced in App. 83. The first enumeration Act uses other words as well to describe the required tie to the State: "usual place of abode," "inhabitant," "usual reside[nt]." Act of Mar. 1, 1790, § 5, 1 Stat. 103. The first draft of Article I, § 2, also used the word "inhabitant," which was omitted by the Committee of Style
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