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Wesberry v. Sanders, 376 U.S. 1
Case citation

Case citation is the system used in many countries to identify the decisions in past court cases, either in special series of books called Reporter s or law reports, or in a 'neutral' form which will identify a decision wherever it was reported....
 (1964) was a case involving congressional
United States Congress

The United States Congress is the Bicameralism legislature of the Federal government of the United States of the United States of America, consisting of two houses, the United States Senate and the United States House of Representatives....
 districts in the state of Georgia
Georgia (U.S. state)

Georgia is a U.S. state in the United States and was one of the original Thirteen Colonies that revolted against United Kingdom rule in the American Revolution....
, brought before the Supreme Court of the United States
Supreme Court of the United States

The Supreme Court of the United States is the highest judicial body in the United States, and leads the federal United States federal courts. It consists of the Chief Justice of the United States and eight Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, who are nominated by the President of the United States and confirmed with th...
. The Court issued a ruling on February 17, 1964 that districts have to be approximately equal in population.

House districts and of rural overrepresentation in the chamber came to an end in the mid- to late 1960s. These abrupt changes were the direct result of a historic decision by the Supreme Court in 1964.






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Wesberry v. Sanders, 376 U.S. 1
Case citation

Case citation is the system used in many countries to identify the decisions in past court cases, either in special series of books called Reporter s or law reports, or in a 'neutral' form which will identify a decision wherever it was reported....
 (1964) was a case involving congressional
United States Congress

The United States Congress is the Bicameralism legislature of the Federal government of the United States of the United States of America, consisting of two houses, the United States Senate and the United States House of Representatives....
 districts in the state of Georgia
Georgia (U.S. state)

Georgia is a U.S. state in the United States and was one of the original Thirteen Colonies that revolted against United Kingdom rule in the American Revolution....
, brought before the Supreme Court of the United States
Supreme Court of the United States

The Supreme Court of the United States is the highest judicial body in the United States, and leads the federal United States federal courts. It consists of the Chief Justice of the United States and eight Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, who are nominated by the President of the United States and confirmed with th...
. The Court issued a ruling on February 17, 1964 that districts have to be approximately equal in population.

House districts and of rural overrepresentation in the chamber came to an end in the mid- to late 1960s. These abrupt changes were the direct result of a historic decision by the Supreme Court in 1964. In Wesberry v. Sanders, the Court held that the population differences among Georgia's congressional districts were so great as to violate the Constitution.

In reaching its landmark decision, the Supreme Court noted that Article I, Section 2 of the United States Constitution
United States Constitution

The Constitution of the United States of America is the supreme law of the United States. It is the foundation and source of the legal authority underlying the existence of the United States of America; the Federal Government of the United States; and all the State & local governments and Territorial Administrative bodies contained therein....
 declares that representatives shall be chosen "by the People of the several States" and shall be "apportioned among the several States...according to their respective Numbers...." These words, the Court held, mean that "as nearly as practicable one man's vote in a congressional election is to be worth as much as another's."

Wesberry and the Court's later "one person, one vote" decisions had an extraordinary impact on the makeup of the House, on the content of public policy, and on electoral politics in general. However, it is quite possible to draw any district lines in accord with the "one person, one vote" rule and, at the same time, to gerrymander them.

A related case, Reynolds v. Sims
Reynolds v. Sims

Reynolds v. Sims, Case citation was a Supreme Court of the United States case that ruled that state legislature districts had to be roughly equal in population....
, 377 U.S. 533
Case citation

Case citation is the system used in many countries to identify the decisions in past court cases, either in special series of books called Reporter s or law reports, or in a 'neutral' form which will identify a decision wherever it was reported....
 (1964), held that seats in both houses of a bicameral state legislature must, under the Equal Protection Clause, represent districts as equal in population as practicably possible, and ruled that unequal districts were unrepublican, thereby violating the Article IV Section 4 Constitutional requirement that states have republican governments. The federal Senate was unaffected since it explicitly
Explicit

Explicit can mean:* very specific, clear, or detailed* containing material that might be deemed offensive or graphic, e.g. sexually explicit material...
 grants each state two senators.

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