In legislation, it signifies one who has been elected a member of that branch of the legislature called the house of repre- sentatives. The securing of fair apportionment of rep- resentatives in legislative bodies is one of the most serious problems in modern con- stitutional law, there being no subject as to which the legislation is more frequently affected by partisan bias. In many of the states there has been an effort to con- trol the matter by constitutional provis- ions under which it is usually required that the districts shall be formed of contiguous territory and contain as nearly as possible an equal number of inhabitants. These are the principal provisions in the consti- tution of Illinois, in which state it was held that an apportionment act was valid which was a substantial compliance with the con- stitution, though the rule of compactness was only applied to a limited extent; 155 III. 451. The subject has been very carefully considered in Indiana. Among the con- clusions reached there are that under the state constitution requiring a sexennial enumeration of the male inhabitants over twenty-one years and an apportionment at the next legislative session thereafter, the legislature, having once made a valid apportionment after an enumeration, is prohibited from making a reapportionment and from repealing such valid apportion- ment during the enumeration period; that if the first apportionment is invalid, even before it has been declared so by the courts, a second may be passed; that the question of the validity of such a law is not a political one, to be determined only at the discretion of the legislature, but that it is entirely within the jurisdiction of the courts to determine its constitutionality; that where the question of constitution- ality has been determined by a lower court in an action between the citizens, and an appeal is dismissed, the subject is not res judicata as against the state: and that the state is not estopped from object- ing to the constitutionality of an appor- tionment by the fact that a legislature has been elected under an unconstitutional act; 144 Ind. 593. In New Jersey it was held that the con- stitutionality of such acts is a subject of judicial inquiry and not a mere political question, but that the courts cannot over- turn a law passed within constitutional limitations on the ground that it is un- wise, impolitic. unjust, or oppressive, or even that it was procured by corporate means; 56 N. J. L. 126, where it was held that mandamus to compel officers to proceed under prior laws in respect to elections instead of following an uncon- stitutional statute is not premature because no demand and refusal has been made or the time arrived when it is the duty of the officers to act. In a Virginia case it was said that the laying off and defining of districts under a constitutional requirement that they should be of contiguous counties, etc., compact, and, as nearly as may be, equal in population, was an exercise of political and discretionary power of the legislature for which they are amenable to the people; 79 Va. 269; but this, it is remarked, "was a meré declaration of the court without dis- cussion of the question and without any facts reported which show any attempt at a gerrymander"; 15 L. R. A. 561, note. Any clear violation of the constitutional provisions will make an apportionment in- valid; as, the division of a county or dis- trict where the constitution forbids it; 81 Wis. 440; or the allotment of a greater number of representatives than the con- stitution directs: 26 Kan. 724; and glar- ing inequalities either of representation or of population in the districts will be con- sidered a sufficient indication that the legislature has exceeded its discretion; 83 Wis. 90; 93 Mich. 1; 2 Idaho 1208; 73 Ν. C. 199; 133 Ind. 178: contra, 135 N. Y. 473, as to which see 31 Am. Law Reg. 851. The opinion by Peckham, J., in the New York case takes a radically different view of the nature of the power involved in the apportionment of a state for represent- atives from that expressed in the other cases cited, particularly those from Indiana and New Jersey. He says: "From the forma- tion of government under written consti- tutions in this country the question of the basis of representation in the legislative branch of the government has been one of the most important and most frequently debated. It is not true that equality of members in representation has been the leading idea at all times in regard to re- publican institutions. The power to readjust the political divisions of a sov- ereignty with the view of representation of those divisions or of the inhabitants thereof, in the legislature, resides, of course, in the first instance, with the people, who in this country are the source of all political power. The essential nature of the power itself is not, however, altered by that fact. In its nature it is political as distinguished from legislative or judicial." If th