as nearly as practicable
Definitions from Case Law · United States Supreme Court
Definitions from Case Law
From 394 U.S. 526 - Kirkpatrick v. Preisler · 1969Most cited · 506 citing opinions
the 'as nearly as practicable' standard requires that the State make a good-faith effort to achieve precise mathematical equality. The command of Art. I § 2, that States create congressional districts which provide equal representation for equal numbers of people permits only the limited population variances which are unavoidable despite a good-faith effort to achieve absolute equality, or for which justification is shown.
How often courts cite the case defining “as nearly as practicable”
Court decisions citing the opinion that defined “as nearly as practicable” — 502 in all, by decade. Counts are citations to the defining case as a whole, not verified uses of the term. The dip in the most recent years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the latest years.