Cite as: 538 U. S. 254 (2003)
Opinion of Stevens, J.
tives at Large to the Ninety-first Congress)." Pub. L. 90-196, 81 Stat. 581 (emphasis added).
The second paragraph of this statute enacts a general rule prohibiting States with more than one congressional Representative from electing their Representatives to Congress in at-large elections.2 That the single exception to this congressional command applied only to Hawaii and New Mexico, and only to the 1968 election, emphasizes the fact that the Act applies to every other State and every other election. Thus, it unambiguously forbids elections that would otherwise have been authorized by § 2a(c)(5). It both creates an "irreconcilable conflict" with the 1941 law and it "covers the whole subject" of at-large congressional elections. Posadas, 296 U. S., at 503. Under either of the accepted standards for identifying implied repeals, it repealed the earlier federal statute. In addition, this statute pre-empts the Mississippi statute setting the default rule as at-large elections.
The first paragraph of the 1967 statute suggests an answer to the question why Congress failed to enact an express repeal of the 1941 law when its intent seems so obvious. The statute that became law in December 1967 was the final gasp in a protracted legislative process that began on January 17, 1967, when Chairman Celler of the House Judiciary Committee introduced H. R. 2508, renewing efforts made in the preceding Congress to provide legislative standards responsive to this Court's holding in Wesberry v. Sanders, 376 U. S. 1 (1964), that the one-person, one-vote principle applies to congressional elections.3 The bill introduced by Representative Celler in 1967 contained express language replacing
2 The States of Hawaii and New Mexico were the only two States that met the statutory exception because they were "entitled to more than one Representative" and had "in all previous elections elected [their] Representatives at Large." Pub. L. 90-196, 81 Stat. 581.
3 In 1965, the House of Representatives passed a bill identical, in all relevant respects, to the bill Representative Celler introduced in January 1967. See H. R. 5505, 89th Cong., 1st Sess. (1965).
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