Wesberry v. Sanders

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Wesberry v. Sanders

Argued November 18, 1963
Decided February 17, 1964

Full case name:	James P. Wesberry, Jr. et al. v. Carl E. Sanders et al.

Citations:	376 U.S. 1; 84 S.Ct. 526; 11 L.Ed.2d 481

Prior history:	206 F. Supp. 276 (N.D. Ga. 1962), prob. juris. noted, 374 U.S. 802 (1963).

Holding

The Constitution requires that members of the House of Representatives be selected by districts composed, as nearly as is practicable, of equal population.

Court membership

Chief Justice: Earl Warren
Associate Justices: Hugo Black, William O. Douglas, Tom C. Clark, John Marshall Harlan II, William J. Brennan, Jr., Potter Stewart, Byron White, Arthur Goldberg

Case opinions

Majority by: Black
Joined by: Warren, Douglas, Brennan, White, Goldberg
Concurrence/dissent by: Clark
Dissent by: Harlan
Dissent by: Stewart

Laws applied

U.S. Const., art. I, § 2.

Wesberry v. Sanders, 376 U.S. 1 (1964) was a case involving congressional districts in the state of Georgia, brought before the Supreme Court of the United States. 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 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, 377 U.S. 533 (1964), held that districts for upper houses of state legislatures seats had to be roughly equal in population.