Utah: Count Missionaries in Census

SALT LAKE CITY —  The state of Utah plans to argue in federal court Wednesday that the Census Bureau overlooked 11,176 Utah residents on overseas Mormon church missions last year--enough to give the state another congressional seat.

“Our votes are being diluted by a selective count of overseas Americans,” said Thomas Lee, a Brigham Young University law professor representing Utah.

In a lawsuit to be heard by a three-judge federal panel, Utah wants the Census Bureau to broaden the count of Americans temporarily living overseas. The bureau counts only federal workers and military personnel, leaving out missionaries and private U.S. employees.

Alternately, Lee said, the Census Bureau could subtract federal workers and military personnel from the count of all state populations.

Either way, Utah officials say the state would gain a fourth congressional seat. A Utah victory would take away North Carolina’s newly apportioned 13th seat.

North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper would not take a call from the Associated Press on Tuesday, and his spokesman was unavailable. Two of North Carolina’s lawyers were on their way to Salt Lake City and couldn’t be reached.

Cooper has defended the Census Bureau from the charge it denied Utah fair representation in Congress. Utah says the census also violates 1st Amendment guarantees by discriminating against members of a church.

An allocation formula left Utah just 857 residents shy of gaining an extra congressional seat. It went to North Carolina instead.

With its large missionary population, Utah could gain an extra U.S. House seat even if the Census Bureau decided to count other states’ missionaries from all religions. Lee said The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints keeps meticulous records on its U.S. missionaries and can easily supply the proof to the Census Bureau.

Cooper has said Utah was trying to change the 2000 census rules after the fact. He’s asking the judges to throw out Utah’s suit.

Lee argues Utah didn’t have a legal case until Dec. 28 with the release of preliminary census figures. Utah’s political leaders and congressional delegation filed suit Jan. 10.

A North Carolina court brief cites a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that upheld the Census Bureau’s decision to limit the overseas count to federal employees for the 1990 census. The high court said an accurate count of all Americans living abroad wasn’t possible and ruled that a limited count protected against bias that could distort congressional apportionment.

Utah will emphasize the inconsistent counting of U.S. citizens living abroad over the past century. Missionaries and other private citizens living abroad were counted for the census from 1910 to 1940, then dropped.

Federal and military personnel--who gave North Carolina an advantage over Utah--were counted only in 1900, 1970, 1990 and 2000. Lee will argue it would not be historically inconsistent to eliminate federal and military personnel from the latest count.

North Carolina’s more than 18,000 military personnel compare to fewer than 4,000 for Utah.

So Utah can gain extra Washington clout by getting the census to strike military personnel or by adding missionaries to the count.