As seen
earlier, those sections have been invoked for the prosecution of
election offenses which interfere with the rights of voters guaranteed
by the second section of this article. The election laws, of the
Reconstruction period were held invalid in part as applied to municipal
elections,[143] but were found to be a constitutional exercise of the
authority conferred by this section with respect to the election of
members of Congress.[144]

LEGISLATURE DEFINED

While requiring the election of Representatives by districts, Congress
has left it to the States to define the areas from which members should
be chosen. This has occasioned a number of disputes concerning the
validity of action taken by the States. In Ohio ex rel. Davis _v._
Hildebrant,[145] a requirement that a redistricting law be submitted to
a popular referendum was challenged and sustained. After the
reapportionment made pursuant to the 1930 census, deadlocks between the
Governor and legislature in several States, produced a series of cases
in which the right of the Governor to veto a reapportionment bill was
questioned. Contrasting this function with other duties committed to
State legislatures by the Constitution, the Court decided that it was
legislative in character and hence subject to gubernatorial veto to the
same extent as ordinary legislation under the terms of the State
constitution.[146]

PRESENT INEQUALITY OF ELECTION DISTRICTS

The Reapportionment Act of 1929[147] omitted a requirement contained in
the 1911 law[148] that Congressional districts be "composed of a
contiguous and compact territory, * * * containing as nearly as
practicable an equal number of inhabitants." Since the earlier act was
not repealed it was argued that the mandate concerning compactness,
contiguity and equality of population of districts was still
controlling. The Supreme Court rejected this view.[149] In Colegrove
_v._ Green,[150] the Illinois Apportionment law, which created districts
now having glaringly unequal populations, was attacked as
unconstitutional on the ground that it denied to voters in the more
populous districts the full right to vote and to the equal protection of
the laws. The Court dismissed the complaint, three Justices asserting
that the issue was not justiciable, and a fourth that the case was one
in which the Court should decline to exercise jurisdiction.[151]
Justice Black, dissenting in an opinion in which Justices Douglas and
Murphy