Court Opinion

ID: 9564101
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 18:54:21.661957+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:18:13.722090
License: Public Domain

SIMMS, Justice,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent.
The statute in question, 19 O.S.Supp.1974, § 215.8, imposes additional qualifications on candidates seeking nominations for the United States Congress. A state may not through its Constitution or statutes, add to or take away from the qualifications for a member of Congress prescribed by the Constitution of the United States.
We have already passed on this question. In Riley v. Cordell, 200 Okl. 390, 194 P.2d 859 (1948), the first syllabus by the Court provides:
“The provisions of Article I, Section 3, of the Constitution of the United States prescribing the qualifications of United States Senators are exclusive, and 20 O.S. 1941, § 5, providing that ‘no justice of the Supreme Court shall become, during the term for which he may be elected or appointed, a candidate for any office other than a judicial position’, does not prevent a justice of the Supreme Court of Oklahoma from becoming a candidate for the nomination for United States Senator.”
Other courts have reached the same result when presented with the question, see e. g., Stockton v. McFarland, 56 Ariz. 138, 106 P.2d 328 (1940); State v. Crane, 65 Wyo. 189,197 P.2d 864 (1948); Wettengel v. Zimmerman, 249 Wis. 237, 24 N.W.2d 504 (1946).
The fact that we may have other statutes which also impose similar unconstitutional restrictions upon other officers of the state who choose to run for federal office, affords no support for upholding this statute.