Gale Encyclopedia of American Law Volume 1 P36 fully illuminates today's leading cases, major statutes, legal terms and concepts, notable persons involved with the law, important documents and more. Legal issues are fully discussed in easy-to-understand language, including such high-profile topics as the Americans with Disabilities Act, capital punishment, domestic violence, gay and lesbian rights, physician-assisted suicide and thousands more. | 338 APPORTIONMENT or voters have been defeated because the exclusion of groups such as illegal aliens nonvoters and children could significantly affect some areas of the country because some states have large populations of these groups. Shifting political power away from an area means fewer legislators to demand a fair share of government resources for that area. One such effort to exclude these groups occurred during the 1866 debates over the passage of the fourteenth amendment and ultimately led to a congressional vote to continue basing apportionment on total population and to count the whole number of persons in each state. In contrast state legislatures have only been required to be based substantially on population since 1964 Reynolds v. Sims 377 . 533 84 S. Ct. 1362 12 L. Ed. 2d 506 . In 1968 the . Supreme Court extended this requirement to municipal governments Avery v. Midland County 390 . 474 88 S. Ct. 1114 20 L. Ed. 2d 45 . Apportionment is related to but is not the same as the electoral system and the districting process Apportionment is the manner in which representation is distributed the electoral system is the way an individual representative is elected and the districting process establishes the precise electoral boundaries of a representative s district. Apportionment for the . Congress which consists of the Senate and the House of Representatives has always been determined by the Constitution. Each state is assigned two senators who were originally elected by state legislatures but since the adoption of the seventeenth amendment in 1913 have been chosen by direct voter election. Membership in the House of Representatives is also assigned to the states and is apportioned according to population with each state being constitutionally guaranteed at least one representative. The House of Representatives grew proportionally with the population of the United States until 1912 when the House froze its size at 435 members. Since 1941 the .
