Utah Is On A Mission
Utah's governor, congressional delegation and others have asked a federal court to immediately order the U.S. Census Bureau to recount some 11,000 Mormon missionaries who were left out in the most recent tally.
If the state gets its way, North Carolina would lose its newly apportioned seat in Congress.
In a motion for summary judgment that lays out the state's case in detail for the first time, attorneys argue the federal head counters discriminated against missionaries by excluding them from the census but counting federal employees temporarily living overseas.
That policy is unconstitutional and violates the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, according to the brief filed on behalf of Gov. Mike Leavitt, Utah's lieutenant governor and attorney general, the state's two U.S. senators and three representatives, members of the state Legislature and four Mormon missionaries.
The 2000 Census counted about 18,000 federal employees who live abroad but claim North Carolina as their home. That figure pushed North Carolina ahead of Utah in the population ranking by just 857 people and earned the state another congressional seat.
Utah would have gotten that seat instead if census officials had similarly counted the 11,159 Utah members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints who were on missions overseas. At the same time, 107 North Carolina residents were on Mormon missions.
Failure to count the missionaries violates the apportionment clause of the constitution by denying the state fair representation, Utah claims. It also violates the First Amendment's guarantees of religious freedom by discriminating against members of a church, the state's lawyers assert.
The policy "burdens religion by putting prospective LDS missionaries to a Hobson's choice between religious service and the benefits including in this case an additional congressman that their continued presence in the state would create," the motion reads.
The Census Bureau has gone back and forth on overseas residents, counting them some years but not others.
The state's argument leans heavily relies on a case in which Massachusetts argued against counting members of the military living overseas. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the military count was acceptable because the Census Bureau had created a specific exception to its rule.
Utah claims that if there's an exemption for secular reasons, the government also has to allow the same exemption for religious groups.
The bureau has "made a value judgment that the reasons for traveling abroad in federal service are of greater import than the reasons for traveling abroad in religious service," the document reads.
The state's lawyers also argue that Mormon missionaries are just as likely, if not more so, to return home upon completing their time overseas as are government employees. The motion also says it won't be difficut to count missionaries because the Mormon church keeps precise records.
Utah's case is to go to a special three-judge panel in mid-March.