Cite as: 517 U. S. 1 (1996)
Opinion of the Court
odds with that of the Director of the Census. According to respondents, we should carefully comb the Secretary's decision in order to review his conclusions de novo.
Respondents' argument fundamentally misapprehends the basis for our deference to the Secretary's determination that the adjusted census results do not provide a more distributively accurate count of the population. Our deference arises not from the highly technical nature of his decision, but rather from the wide discretion bestowed by the Constitution upon Congress, and by Congress upon the Secretary. Regardless of the Secretary's statistical expertise, it is he to whom Congress has delegated its constitutional authority over the census. For that same reason, the mere fact that the Secretary's decision overruled the views of some of his subordinates is by itself of no moment in any judicial review of his decision.
Turning finally to review the Secretary's conclusion that the PES-based adjustment would not improve distributive accuracy, we need note only that the Secretary's conclusion is supported by the reasoning of some of his advisers, and was therefore a reasonable choice in an area where technical experts disagree. Cf. Tucker v. United States Dept. of Commerce, 958 F. 2d, at 1418 (Plaintiffs seeking PES-based statistical adjustment "are asking [courts] to take sides in a dispute among statisticians, demographers, and census officials concerning the desirability of making a statistical adjustment to the census headcount"). The Under Secretary of Commerce for Economic Affairs and the Administrator of the Economics and Statistics Administration both voted against adjustment. Pet. App. 59a, 140a. Moreover, even those who recommended in favor of adjustment recognized that their conclusion was not compelled by the evidence: The Director of the Census Bureau, upon whose recommendation respondents heavily rely, stated in her report to the Secretary that "[a]djustment is an issue about which reasonable men and women and the best statisticians and demographers
23
Page: Index Previous 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 NextLast modified: October 4, 2007