808
Opinion of Stevens, J.
court concluded that the Secretary's decision was "arbitrary and capricious, and an abuse of discretion." 785 F. Supp., at 267.
In a rather surprising development, this Court reverses because it concludes that the census report is not "final agency action," 5 U. S. C. § 704. The reason the Court gives for this conclusion is that the President—who is not himself a part of the agency that prepared the census and who has no statutory responsibilities under the Census Act—might revise that report in some way when he is performing his responsibilities under an entirely separate statute, the Apportionment Act. The logic of the Court's opinion escapes me, and apparently was not obvious to the Solicitor General, for he advanced no such novel claim in his argument seeking reversal. The Court's conclusion is erroneous for several reasons.
II
Article I, § 2, cl. 3, of the Constitution, as modified by the Fourteenth Amendment, provides that Members of the House of Representatives "shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State . . . ." To ensure that the apportionment remains representative of the current population, the Constitution further requires that a census be taken at least every 10 years.1
Beginning in 1790, Congress fulfilled the constitutional command by passing a Census Act every 10 years. Under the early census statutes, marshals would transmit the collected information to the Secretary of State. The census functions of the Secretary of State were transferred to the Secretary of the Interior after that Department was estab-1 "The actual Enumeration shall be made within three Years after the first Meeting of the Congress of the United States, and within every subsequent Term of ten Years, in such manner as they shall by Law direct." U. S. Const., Art. I, § 2, cl. 3.
Page: Index Previous 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 NextLast modified: October 4, 2007