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redistricting plan that has five districts with a population of 90,000 and five districts with a population of 110,000. The "deviations" of the districts would be 10,000 minus and 10,000 plus, or minus ten percent and plus ten percent. The "average deviation" from the ideal would be 10,000 or ten percent. And the "overall range" would be 20,000, or 20 percent. Most courts have used what statisticians call the "overall range" to measure the population equality of a redistricting plan, though they have usually referred to it by other names, such as "maximum deviation," "total deviation," or "overall deviation." • C. Congressional Plans 1. "As Nearly Equal in Population As Practicable" Once you know the population, and you know how to measure the degree of population equality in a plan, how equal do the districts have to be? First, you must understand that the federal courts use two different standards for judging redistricting plans — one for congressional plans and a different one for legislative plans. The standard for congressional plans is based on Article I, Section 2, of the U.S. Constitution, which says: Representatives ... shall be apportioned among the several States ... according to their respective numbers ... . The standard for congressional plans is strict equality. In the 1964 case of Wesberry v. Sanders, 376 U.S. 1, the U.S. Supreme Court articulated that standard as "as nearly equal in population as practicable." Notice the choice of words. The Court did not say "as nearly equal as practical." The American Heritage Dictionary defines "practicable" as "capable of being ... done ...." It notes that something "practical" is not only capable of being done, but "also sensible and worthwhile." It illustrates the difference between the two by pointing out that "It might be practicable to transport children to school by balloon, but it would not be practical." In 1983, in Karcher v. Daggett, 462 U.S. 725, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a congressional redistricting plan drawn by the New Jersey Legislature that had an overall range of less than one percent. To be precise, .6984 percent, or 3,674 people. The plaintiffs showed that at least one other plan before the Legislature had an overall range less than the plan enacted by the Legislature, thus carrying their burden of proving that the population differences could have been reduced or eliminated by a good -faith effort to draw districts of equal population. In the 1980s, three judge federal courts drawing their own redistricting plans achieved near mathematical equality. For example, in Minnesota the court-drawn plan had an overall range of 46 people (.0145 percent), LaComb v. Growe, 541 F. Supp. 145 (D. Minn. 1982) aff'd mem. sub nom. Orwoll v. LaComb, 456 U.S. 966 (1982) (Appendix A, unpublished) (In its opinion, the Court tells only the sum of all the deviations, 76 people, and refers to it as the "total population deviation "), and in Colorado the court-drawn plan had an overall range of ten people (.0020 percent), Carstens v. Lamm, 543 F. Supp. 68, 99 (D. Colo. 1982). With the improvements in the census and in the computer technology used to draw redistricting plans after the 1990 census, the degree of population equality that was "practicable" was even greater than that achieved in the 1980s. Many states drew congressional plans with an