North Carolina could lose its new congressional seat as a result of a Utah lawsuit questioning the Congressional reapportionment process in 2000. For those following the issue, resources available at Carolina's Howard W. Odum Institute for Research in Social Science may prove valuable.

Utah claims it was cheated out of a congressional seat because, under the current reapportionment methods, the Census Bureau did not count all Utah citizens abroad. Because North Carolina figures included those serving overseas in the military and diplomatic services, Utah feels that its numbers should include the state's many overseas missionaries.

Thad Beyle, professor of political science, explained, "In the North Carolina case, there are official governmental counts and records of just how many and who are serving overseas." Data provided by the defense department, such as military and diplomats overseas, is official government information. However, the records and counts on missionaries overseas would be coming from Church of Latter Day Saints. "There may be a subtle church-state problem here," Beyle said, including a flood of demands from all other churches with missionaries and personnel overseas.

Melissa Saunders, professor of law and special counsel to the attorney general of North Carolina, said the church-state question is the crux of a recent Utah motion. "Utah's claim is that the Census Bureau's failure to count Utah citizens who are temporarily overseas on religious missions imposes a burden on those missionaries' right to the free exercise of their religion," Saunders said. "I see serious problems with all of their arguments."

A look at census data and terminology offers useful background information in light of the pending lawsuit. Edward Bachmann, coordinator for the Demographic Data Service at the Odum Institute, pored over a document published by the Census Bureau in 1993 and revealed that rules used to define "apportionment" population have changed repeatedly. Bachmann found that in the 1970s, the apportionment population was expanded to include military, but the decision was retracted in 1980 and then reinstated in 1990 and 2000.

The rules have been inconsistent for the military maybe, but not for private citizens. "Although the bureau has changed its definition of apportionment population over the years, it has never included in the apportionment population private citizens living abroad that are not affiliated with the Federal government," Bachmann said. The Census Bureau counts missionaries the same as they do college students--those that are in the United States are included; those that are overseas are not. "The near impossibility of systematically locating private citizens abroad is no doubt the basis for this rule," Bachmann said.

Utah and the U.S. Census Bureau agreed to a quick trial on the state's challenge of the national count, skipping two preliminary hearings and going to a three-judge federal panel scheduled for mid-March. Saunders predicts that the lawsuit, like the handful of apportionment cases brought up in the past, likely will go to the Supreme Court.

Supreme Court or not, Saunders is confident that in the end the new congressional seat will be awarded to North Carolina. "I have little doubt that North Carolina will prevail."

Odum Institute at a glance

The oldest facility of its kind in the United States, and one of the oldest in the world, Carolina's Howard W. Odum Institute for Research in Social Science has evolved into a center offering many diverse services to support the research and training of social science faculty and students.

The Odum Institute provides access to one of the largest, most extensive electronic collections of census data in the United States and is affiliated with the North Carolina State Data Center, a cooperative program with the Census Bureau headquartered in Raleigh.

"The Odum Institute has collected census data since the 1960s, when the documents began to be released in electronic form," said Edward Bachmann, coordinator for the Demographic Data Service at the Odum Institute. Few institutions at that time were equipped for such a collection--Carolina was. As a joint effort, the Census Bureau provided the computers and the University provided the expertise and the technology to accumulate the data. While Davis Library recently installed similar electronic resources, it does not have the 1960s, or more extensive 1970s and 1980s collection available at Odum.