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SUPREME COURT OF THE
UNITED STATES
Syllabus
U. S. TERM LIMITS, INC., et al. v. THORNTON et al.
certiorari to the supreme court of arkansas
No. 93-1456. Argued November 29, 1994 -- Decided May 22, 1995
Respondent Hill filed this suit in Arkansas state court challenging
the constitutionality of §3 of Amendment 73 to the Arkansas
Constitution, which prohibits the name of an otherwise eligible
candidate for Congress from appearing on the general election ballot
if that candidate has already served three terms in the House of
Representatives or two terms in the Senate. The trial court held
that §3 violated Article I of the Federal Constitution, and the
Arkansas Supreme Court affirmed. A plurality of the latter court
concluded that the States have no authority "to change, add to, or
diminish" the age, citizenship, and residency requirements for
congressional service enumerated in the Qualifications Clauses, U.
S. Const., Art. I, §2, cl. 2, and Art. I, §3, cl. 3, and rejected
the argument that Amendment 73 is constitutional because it is
formulated as a ballot access restriction rather than an outright
disqualification of congressional incumbents.
Held: Section 3 of Amendment 73 to the Arkansas Constitution violates the
Federal Constitution. Pp. 6-61.
(a) The power granted to each House of Congress to judge the
"Qualifications of its own Members," Art. I, §5, cl. 1, does not
include the power to alter or add to the qualifications set forth in
the Constitution's text. Powell v. McCormack,
395 U.S. 486, 540. After examining Powell's analysis of
the Qualifications Clauses' history and text, id., at
518-548, and its articulation of the "basic principles of our
democratic system," id., at 548, this Court reaffirms that
the constitutional qualifications for congressional service are
"fixed," at least in the sense that they may not be supplemented by
Congress. Pp. 6-18.
(b) So too, the Constitution prohibits States from imposing
congressional qualifications additional to those specifically
enumerated in its text. Petitioners' argument that States possess
control over qualifications as part of the original powers reserved
to them by the
Tenth Amendment is rejected for two reasons. First, the power to
add qualifications is not within the States' pre-Tenth
Amendment "original powers," but is a new right arising from the
Constitution itself, and thus is not reserved. Second, even if the
States possessed some original power in this area, it must be
concluded that the Framers intended the Constitution to be the
exclusive source of qualifications for Members of Congress, and that
the Framers thereby "divested" States of any power to add
qualifications. That this is so is demonstrated by the unanimity
among the courts and learned commentators who have considered the
issue; by the Constitution's structure and the text of pertinent
constitutional provisions, including Art. I, §2, cl. 1, Art. I, §4,
cl. 1, Art. I, §6, and Art. I, §5, cl. 1; by the relevant historical
materials, including the records of the Constitutional Convention
and the ratification debates, as well as Congress' subsequent
experience with state attempts to impose qualifications; and, most
importantly, by the "fundamental principle of our representative
democracy . . . `that the people should choose whom they please to
govern them,' " Powell, 395 U. S., at 547. Permitting
individual States to formulate diverse qualifications for their
congressional representatives would result in a patchwork that would
be inconsistent with the Framers' vision of a uniform National
Legislature representing the people of the United States. The fact
that, immediately after the adoption of the Constitution, many
States imposed term limits and other qualifications on state
officers, while only one State imposed such a qualification on
Members of Congress, provides further persuasive evidence of a
general understanding that the qualifications in the Constitution
were unalterable by the States. Pp. 18-50.
(c) A state congressional term limits measure is unconstitutional
when it has the likely effect of handicapping a class of candidates
and has the sole purpose of creating additional qualifications
indirectly. The Court rejects petitioners' argument that Amendment
73 is valid because it merely precludes certain congressional
candidates from being certified and having their names appear on the
ballot, and allows them to run as write in candidates and serve if
elected. Even if petitioners' narrow understanding of qualifications
is correct, Amendment 73 must fall because it is an indirect attempt
to evade the Qualifications Clauses' requirements and trivializes
the basic democratic principles underlying those Clauses. Nor can
the Court agree with petitioners' related argument that Amendment 73
is a permissible exercise of state power under the Elections Clause,
Art. I, §4, cl. 1, to regulate the "Times, Places and Manner of
holding Elections." A necessary consequence of that argument is that
Congress itself would have the power under the Elections Clause to
"make or alter" a measure such as Amendment 73, a result that is
unfathomable under Powell. Moreover, petitioners' broad
construction is fundamentally inconsistent with the Framers' view of
the Elections Clause, which was intended to grant States authority
to protect the integrity and regularity of the election process by
regulating election procedures, see, e.g., Storer v.
Brown,
415 U.S. 724, 730, 733, not to provide them with license to
impose substantive qualifications that would exclude classes of
candidates from federal office. Pp. 50-60.
(d) State imposition of term limits for congressional service would
effect such a fundamental change in the constitutional framework
that it must come through a constitutional amendment properly passed
under the procedures set forth in Article V. Absent such an
amendment, allowing individual States to craft their own
congressional qualifications would erode the structure designed by
the Framers to form a "more perfect Union." Pp. 60-61.
316 Ark. 251, 872 S. W. 2d 349, affirmed.
Stevens, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Kennedy,
Souter, Ginsburg, and Breyer, JJ., joined. Kennedy, J., filed a
concurring opinion. Thomas, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which
Rehnquist, C. J., and O'Connor and Scalia, JJ., joined.
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