Cite as: 517 U. S. 1 (1996)
Opinion of the Court
adjust was essential for the achievement of a legitimate governmental objective. Ibid.
The dissenting judge stated that he would have affirmed based upon the decision of the District Court. See ibid. He also noted that the majority's decision created a conflict with two other decisions of the Courts of Appeals. See Detroit v. Franklin, 4 F. 3d 1367 (CA6 1993), and Tucker v. United States Dept. of Commerce, 958 F. 2d 1411 (CA7 1992).
Wisconsin, Oklahoma, and the United States each filed a petition for certiorari. We granted those petitions, and consolidated them for argument. 515 U. S. 1190 (1995). We now reverse.
II
In recent years, we have twice considered constitutional challenges to the conduct of the census. In Department of Commerce v. Montana, 503 U. S. 442 (1992), the State of Montana, several state officials, and Montana's Members of Congress brought suit against the Federal Government, challenging as unconstitutional the method used to determine the number of Representatives to which each State is entitled. A majority of a three-judge District Court looked to the principle of equal representation for equal numbers of people that was applied to intrastate districting in Wesberry v. Sanders, supra, and held it applicable to congressional apportionment of seats among the States. Noting a significant variance between the population of Montana's single district and the population of the "ideal district," the court found that Congress' chosen method of apportionment violated the principle of Wesberry, and therefore voided the federal statute providing the method of apportionment.
In a unanimous decision, this Court reversed. We began by revisiting Wesberry, a case in which the Court held unconstitutional wide disparities in the population of congressional districts drawn by the State of Georgia. Montana, supra, at 459-460. We recognized that the principle of Wesberry— " 'equal representation for equal numbers of people' "—had
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