Opinion ID: 2411071
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 8

Heading: qualifications clause

Text: We next address the issue of whether the State of Arkansas can render certain incumbent U.S. senators and representatives ineligible to appear on the ballot for their respective positions. We conclude that such a restriction on eligibility to stand for election to the U.S. Congress is violative of the respective Qualification clauses of Article 1 of the U.S. Constitution. Those clauses read: § 2. House of representatives. . . . . [2.] No person shall be a representative who shall not have attained to the age of twenty-five years, and been seven years a citizen of the United States, and who shall not, when elected, be an inhabitant of that state in which he shall be chosen. . . . . § 3. Senate. . . . . [3.] No person shall be a senator who shall not have attained to the age of thirty years, and been nine years a citizen of the United States, and who shall not, when elected, be an inhabitant of the state for which he shall be chosen. U.S. Const. art. 1, § 2, cl. 2 and § 3, cl. 3. The parties in this case have taken considerable pains to educate this court on the history of the respective Qualification clauses and the original intent of the framers of the U.S. Constitution. We find the history to be helpful but inconclusive regarding the issue at hand. We can glean from the history that a provision to require the rotation, as it was called, of senators and representatives was discussed and debated and ultimately discarded at the Constitutional Convention as a formal provision of the U.S. Constitution. C. Warren, The Making of the Constitution (1928). No doubt that evinces a decision on the part of the framers not to mandate rotation, or term limits. At the same time, whether the states are foreclosed from adding a restriction to candidacy in the form of service limitations is not specifically addressed. Under the previous Articles of Confederation, individual states had this authority, and delegates to Congress were limited to a term of three years. Art. Conf. V (1777). The framers of the U.S. Constitution did not expressly endow the states with this same authority. Indeed, the Constitutional Convention of 1787 defeated a proposal for the states to set property qualifications for service in Congress. C. Warren, The Making of the Constitution 418 (1928). The ultimate document proposed by the framers and ratified by the states as the U.S. Constitution enumerated three benchmarks for congressional serviceage, citizenship, and residency. No other qualifications were included. When the House of Representatives attempted to add one more by refusing to seat one of its own members in 1967, Rep. Adam Clayton Powell, for wrongfully diverting federal funds to himself, his wife, and staff, the United States Supreme Court scuttled the effort. Powell v. McCormack, 395 U.S. 486, 89 S.Ct. 1944, 23 L.Ed.2d 491 (1969). In doing so, the Court quoted Alexander Hamilton, who was answering an antifederalist charge during the ratification process that the proposed U.S. Constitution favored the wealthy and propertied interests: The truth is that there is no method of securing to the rich the preference apprehended but by prescribing qualifications of property either for those who may elect or be elected. But this forms no part of the power to be conferred upon the national government. Its authority would be expressly restricted to the regulation of the times, the places, the manner of elections. The qualifications of the persons who may choose or be chosen, as has been remarked upon other occasions, are defined and fixed in the Constitution, and are unalterable by the legislature. The Federalist Papers 371 (Mentor ed. 1961). Emphasis in last sentence added.) 395 U.S. at 539, 89 S.Ct. at 1973. The Legislature referenced by Hamilton was the Congress, but it is his allusion to the fixed and immutable character of the enumerated qualifications that is illuminating today. In that same decision, Powell v. McCormack , the Court made mention of a Report by the House Committee on Elections regarding the eligibility of William McCreery to sit in Congress. The issue concerned an additional residency requirement imposed by the State of Maryland that disqualified him. That Report clearly and specifically determined that the U.S. Constitution reserved no authority in the State legislatures to change, add to, or diminish the qualifications set forth in Article 1. 395 U.S. at 542-543, 89 S.Ct. at 1974-1975, citing 17 Annals of Cong. 871-872 (1807). Qualifications set out in the U.S. Constitution, unalterable except by amendment to that document, is a conclusion that makes eminently good sense. If there is one watchword for representation of the various states in Congress, it is uniformity. Federal legislators speak to national issues that affect the citizens of every state. Additional age restrictions, residency requirements, or sundry experience criteria established by the states would cause variances in this uniformity and lead to an imbalance among the states with respect to who can sit in Congress. This is precisely what we believe the drafters of the U.S. Constitution intended to avoid. The uniformity in qualifications mandated in Article 1 provides the tenor and the fabric for representation in the Congress. Piecemeal restrictions by state would fly in the face of that order. The appellants raise a corollary argument. They urge that Amendment 73 is merely a ballot access amendment and not a mandate establishing an additional qualification. No doubt some effort was made by the drafters of Amendment 73 to couch it in terms of eligibility to appear on the ballot rather than as a disqualification. And organizing and overseeing the time, place, and manner of elections clearly falls within the province of the states under the U.S. Constitution. U.S. Const. art. 1, § 4. Provisions, for example, requiring state officials to resign before running for federal office have been upheld as merely falling within the general power of the states to regulate federal elections. See, e.g., Joyner v. Mofford, 706 F.2d 1523 (9th Cir.), cert. denied, 464 U.S. 1002, 104 S.Ct. 509, 78 L.Ed.2d 698 (1983). This effort to dress eligibility to stand for Congress in ballot access clothing, that is, as a regulatory measure falling within the State's ambit under Article 1, § 4, is not without some rational appeal. We do not agree, however, that excluding a broad category of persons from seeking election to Congress is a mere exercise of regulatory power. The intent and the effect of Amendment 73 are to disqualify congressional incumbents from further service. We do recognize that an ineligible congressman under Amendment 73 is not totally disqualified and might run as a write-in candidate for Congress or receive a gubernatorial appointment to fill a vacancy in the same body. Following this thread, the appellants posit that term limitations do not mean disqualificationonly ineligibility to be placed on the ballot as a candidate for certain offices. These glimmers of opportunity for those disqualified, though, are faint indeedso faint in our judgment that they cannot salvage Amendment 73 from constitutional attack. See Thorsted v. Gregoire, 841 F.Supp. 1068 (W.D.Wash.1994). An additional qualification has been added to congressional eligibility. The list now reads age, nationality, residency, and prior service. Term limitations for congressional representation may well have come of age. But to institute such a change, an amendment to the U.S. Constitution is required, ratified by three-fourths of the states. U.S. Const. art. 5. In sum, the Qualification clauses fix the sole requirements for congressional service. This is not a power left to the states under the Tenth Amendment. The attempt to add an additional criterion based on length of service is in direct conflict with the Qualification clauses, and the Supremacy Clause pertains. Section 3 is stricken from Amendment 73.