In Baker v. Carr (1962), the United States Supreme Court ruled permissible the hearing by a Federal court of contentions that state legislative malapportionment could be a denial of the rights guaranteed under the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. This decision provided the basis for the subsequent entertainment by the Supreme Court of the case of Reynolds v. Sims (1964). In this latter case, the Court held that both houses of state legislatures must be elected with equal representation of population as the prime consideration or be at odds with the equal protection clause.