Baker v. Carr

Representative Government.

The concept of representation is basic to local, state, and federal government. Such bodies as local councils, state legislatures, and the U.S. House of Representatives are formed by elected officials who come from a particular area or district to represent the interests of the people who elected them. If one representative comes from a district with ten people and another comes from a district with a thousand people, the people in the smaller district can be said to have a greater voice in government than the people in the larger district. Representation is thus unequal and government may be unfair

Unequal Representation.

By the end of World War II district imbalance was especially great in the states that had the fastest growing populations. In Georgia the largest congressional district had 823,680 people in it, while the smallest had only 272,154. Illinois was another seriously...

[The entire page is 1570 words long]

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