Rep. Jim Matheson, D-Utah, persuaded the House on Wednesday to order the State Department and the Census Bureau to begin working together on ways to count Americans living abroad during the once-a-decade Census.

"It is unfair to Utah that the Census Bureau does not count (Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) missionaries living overseas," Matheson said.

He added, "After the 2000 Census, Utah narrowly missed getting a fourth seat in the U.S. House of Representatives because many LDS missionaries living abroad were not counted." Final audits showed the state missed that seat by about 80 people.

Matheson's amendment, added by voice vote to a State Department reauthorization bill, calls for the State Department and Census to study and report to Congress on ways that passports (or other documentation) of Americans living overseas could be used to count them.

The Census Bureau already has announced that it does not plan to count Americans living abroad next year in the 2010 Census. It conducted experiments about how it might do that, and deemed all methods it tried as unworkable.

But Matheson said that getting the State Department and Census working on the problem for the future "will put Utah on a path to ultimately get the full representation it deserves in the U.S. House of Representatives."

The bill now goes to the Senate for consideration.

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