486
Opinion of O'Connor, J.
lation has been directly surveyed on a particular attribute and then that subset is used to estimate population characteristics of that same attribute. Such a limitation is neither ill defined nor all encompassing.
Apart from the above arguments, which primarily relate to the statistical characterization of imputation, the majority makes several additional arguments. It contends that Congress' use of the term "sampling" should be read narrowly, limited to what "the Secretary called 'sampling,' at the time." Ante, at 469. But the statutory prohibition was not written in terms of what the Secretary viewed as sampling, nor is there any reason to think Congress intended the term "sampling" to be read narrowly as a tight restriction on the Bureau's ability to gather data for nonapportionment purposes. Rather, the "purpose . . . [was] to permit the utilization of something less than a complete enumeration, as implied by the word 'census,' . . . except with respect to apportionment." H. R. Rep. No. 1043, 85th Cong., 1st Sess., 10 (1957) (emphasis added). This suggests "sampling" was meant in a broad rather than narrow sense.
Moreover, because the Bureau's authorization to use sampling for nonapportionment purposes was simultaneously a prohibition on the use of sampling for apportionment purposes, it makes even less sense to construe "sampling" narrowly when viewed as a prohibition given the broader historical context in which § 195 marked "the first departure from the requirement that the enumerators collect all census information through personal visits to every household in the Nation." House of Representatives, 525 U. S., at 336. Finally, even if one were willing to assume that the statutory prohibition should not be read to cover statistical techniques the Bureau had used for apportionment purposes prior to 1957, that still would not justify the use of imputation since the Bureau had never before added people to the apportionment count using that process. See Hogan ¶¶ 39, 41, App. 266-268.
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