Opinion ID: 160439
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Impermissible Qualifications

Text: 19 Rather than analyze the registration requirement as a regulatory interest of the State, the district court focused on the requirement's violation of the Qualifications Clause. The evenhanded procedural regulations permissible under the Elections Clause are not at odds with the purposes of the Qualifications Clause. The Qualifications Clause reinforces the the true principle of a republic that the people should choose whom they please to govern them. 2 Debates on the Federal Constitution (J. Elliot ed., 1876), quoted in Powell v. McCormack, 395 U.S. 486, 540-41 (1969); see also Thornton, 514 U.S. at 820-21 (recognizing that the right to choose representatives belongs not to the States, but to the people). Consequently, the qualifications provision is not alterable by the State governments. The Federalist No. 52. Article I provides reasonable limitations, that allow the door of this part of the federal government [to be] open to merit of every description, whether native or adoptive, whether young or old, and without regard to poverty or wealth, or to any particular profession or religious faith. Id.; see also Thornton, 514 U.S. at 832-33 (stating the purpose of the Elections Clause is to create procedural regulations, not to give the States license to exclude classes of candidates from federal office); Powell, 395 U.S. at 550 (holding that attempted unseating of Congressman Powell, who had been convicted of mishandling congressional funds, was an impermissible imposition of additional qualifications). 20 The State argues that the district court erred in concluding that 1-4-802(1)(g) is an impermissible qualification. The State proffers the Supreme Court's decision in Thornton as evidence of 1-4-802(1)(g)'s 'evenhanded restrictions' meant only to 'protect the integrity and reliability of the electoral process' pursuant to the Elections Clause. Thornton, 514 U.S. at 834 (quoting Anderson, 460 U.S. at 788, n. 9). 21 The State cites the following language from Thornton for support: 22 The provisions at issue in Storer and our other Elections Clause cases were thus constitutional because they regulated election procedures and did not even arguably impose any substantive qualification rendering a class of potential candidates ineligible for ballot position. . . . Our cases upholding state regulations of election procedures thus provide little support for the contention that a state-imposed ballot access restriction is constitutional when it is undertaken for the twin goals of disadvantaging a particular class of candidates and evading the dictates of the Qualifications Clauses. 23 514 U.S. at 835 (emphasis supplied). But, unlike the California statute before the Storer Court, 1-4-802(1)(g) fosters the twin goals discouraged in Thornton: It disadvantages a particular class of candidates and evades the dictates of the Qualifications Clause. First, by preventing those who are ineligible to register to vote (e.g., persons serving criminal sentences or on parole, see Colo. Rev. Stat. 1-2-103(4), and non-residents, see id. 1-2-101(1)(b)), from becoming a candidate under the guise of ballot regulation, and second by precluding all non-registering persons from candidacy. 24 Tellingly, additional language from Thornton supports the district court's conclusion that 1-4-802(1)(g) imposes an impermissible qualification: 25 [The provisions at issue in Storer] served the state interest in protecting the integrity and regularity of the election process, an interest independent of any attempt to evade the constitutional prohibition against the imposition of additional qualifications for service in Congress. And they did not involve measures that exclude candidates from the ballot without reference to the candidates' support in the electoral process. 26 Thornton, 514 U.S. at 835 (emphasis supplied). The State has not demonstrated that 1-4-802(1)(g) protects the integrity or regularity of the election process and, as demonstrated above, the statute does involve measures that unjustly exclude various segments of the population from the ballot. We hold that the statute imposes additional qualifications to the exclusive qualifications set forth in the Constitution, and hence is impermissible.