Cite as: 505 U. S. 788 (1992)
Opinion of Stevens, J.
appellees' contention that the Secretary's decision to include overseas federal employees was arbitrary and capricious and should have been set aside under the APA.
With the exception of the census conducted in 1900, overseas federal employees were not included in state census totals before 1970.23 In the census conducted in 1970, during the Vietnam War, overseas military personnel were assigned to States for apportionment purposes based on the "home of record" appearing in their personnel files.24 The Bureau
reverted to its previous policy of excluding overseas employees from apportionment totals in the 1980 census. In explaining this decision, one of the reasons cited by Bureau officials was the "unknown reliability" of the data relied on to determine the "home State" of overseas personnel. App. 55. In discussions with the Bureau and in testimony before Congress, officials of the Defense Department agreed that "home of record" data had a high "error rate" and might have little correlation with an employee's true feelings of affiliation. See id., at 124, 183.
In July 1989, then-Secretary Mosbacher decided to include overseas employees in state population figures in the 1990
"home of record" when entering the service and is not permitted to change it thereafter. See App. 147, n. 5. This information may therefore be quite stale, implicating the constitutional requirements of accuracy and decenniality.
The special problems of including overseas personnel in the census, though, necessitate difficult judgments about the best data to use. In view of the discretion available to the Secretary in formulating residence rules, the adoption of the "home of record" principle cannot be said to transgress any constitutional command. Accuracy in this context is clearly a comparative concept, and appellees have not demonstrated that the constitutional requirement of accuracy dictates a different method of determining residence.
Like the District Court, I also conclude that the Secretary's decision did not violate any specific provision of the Census Act. See 785 F. Supp., at 266, n. 31.
23 See App. 175-177.
24 See id., at 57.
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