Franklin v. Massachusetts

The Census Bureau (defendant), in compiling 1990 census results, decided to allocate over 900,000 overseas military personnel to their home states of record, shifting a House seat from Massachusetts (plaintiff) to Washington. The Secretary of Commerce (defendant) reported these results to the president, who then sent Congress the statutorily required statement of state population totals and resulting House seat allocations. Massachusetts and two citizens sued the president, Secretary, and Bureau, and the district court held the overseas-personnel counting method was an abuse of discretion reviewable under the Administrative Procedure Act (APA).