Cite as: 517 U. S. 1 (1996)
Opinion of the Court
Court in Montana and Franklin that applies to the Secretary's decision not to adjust. The text of the Constitution vests Congress with virtually unlimited discretion in conducting the decennial "actual Enumeration," 9 see Art. I, § 2, cl. 3, and notwithstanding the plethora of lawsuits that inevitably accompany each decennial census,10 there is no basis for thinking that Congress' discretion is more limited than the text of the Constitution provides. See also Baldrige v. Shapiro, 455 U. S. 345, 361 (1982) (noting broad scope of Congress' discretion over census). Through the Census Act, Congress has delegated its broad authority over the census to the Secretary.11 See 13 U. S. C. § 141(a) (Secretary shall take "a decennial census of [the] population . . . in such form and content as he may determine . . ."). Hence, so long as the Secretary's conduct of the census is "consistent with the
9 We do not decide whether the Constitution might prohibit Congress from conducting the type of statistical adjustment considered here. See Brief for Petitioner in No. 94-1614, pp. 40-42.
10 See, e. g., Franklin v. Massachusetts, 505 U. S. 788, 790 (1992) ("As one season follows another, the decennial census has again generated a number of reapportionment controversies"); National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty v. Brown, appeal pending, No. 94-5312 (CADC) (argued Oct. 6, 1995) (challenging Census Bureau's procedures for finding and counting homeless persons); Carey v. Klutznick, 637 F. 2d 834 (CA2 1980) (seeking order directing Census Bureau to adopt certain processes for counting persons); Borough of Bethel Park v. Stans, 449 F. 2d 575 (CA3 1971).
11 We do not here decide the precise bounds of the authority delegated to the Secretary through the Census Act. First, because no party here has suggested that Congress has, in its delegation of authority over the conduct of the census to the Secretary, constrained the Secretary's authority to decide not to adjust the census, we assume here that the Secretary's discretion not to adjust the census is commensurate with that of Congress. See Brief for Petitioner in No. 94-1614, p. 24, n. 19 (stating that "Congress did not enact any . . . legislation . . . to compel . . . statistical adjustment" of the 1990 census). Second, although Oklahoma argues that Congress has constrained the Secretary's discretion to statistically adjust the decennial census, see 13 U. S. C. § 195, we need not decide that question in order to resolve this action.
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