draw the district map for each State, it has not exercised this level of oversight. Congress has, however, required the States to conform to certain practices when drawing districts. States are currently required to use a single-member district scheme, whereby the State is divided into as many election districts for Representatives in the House of Representatives as the size of its representation in that body (that is to say, Representatives cannot be elected at-large from the whole State unless the State has only one Representative in the House, nor can districts elect more than 1 Representative). The Supreme Court has interpreted "by the Legislature thereof" to include the state governor's veto, and the initiative process, in those states whose constitutions provide it. This conclusion has been challenged, however, by the independent state legislature theory, which may have growing support on the Supreme Court. Congress first exercised its power to regulate elections nation-wide in 1842, when the 27th Congress passed a law requiring the election of Representatives by districts. In subsequent years, Congress expanded on the requirements, successively adding contiguity, compactness, and substantial equality of population to the districting requirements. These standards were all later deleted in the Reapportionment Act of 1929, but the Supreme Court has re-imposed the population requirement on the States under the Equal Protection Clause and is suspicious of districts that do not meet the other "traditional" districting criteria of compactness and contiguity. The single member district requirement was reinforced in the Uniform Congressional District Act passed by Congress in 1967. In 1865, Congress legislated a remedy for a situation under which deadlocks in state legislatures over the election of senators were creating vacancies in the office. The act required the two houses of each legislature to meet in joint session on a specified day and to meet every day thereafter until a senator was selected. The first comprehensive federal statute dealing with elections was adopted in 1870 as a means of enforcing the Fifteenth Amendment’s guarantee against racial discrimination in granting suffrage rights. Under the Enforcement Act of 1870, and subsequent laws, false registration, bribery, voting without legal right, making false returns of votes cast, interference in any manner with officers of election, and the neglect by any such officer of any duty required by state or federal law were made federal offenses. Provision was made for the appointment by federal judges of persons to attend