Even if petitioners' narrow understanding of qualifications is correct, Amendment 73 must fall because it is an indirect attempt to evade Page III the Qualifications Clauses' requirements and trivializes the basic democratic principles underlying those Clauses. 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. (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 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. 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. `that the people should choose whom they please to govern them,"' Powell,
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 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. 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.
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. 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. (b) So too, the Constitution prohibits States from imposing congressional qualifications additional to those specifically enumerated in its text. 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 Page II that the constitutional qualifications for congressional service are "fixed," at least in the sense that they may not be supplemented by Congress. 1, does not include the power to alter or add to the qualifications set forth in the Constitution's text. "Qualifications of its own Members," Art. (a) The power granted to each House of Congress to judge the Section 3 of Amendment 73 to the Arkansas Constitution violates the Federal Constitution. 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. 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.
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The trial court held that 3 violated Article I of the Federal Constitution, and the Arkansas Supreme Court affirmed. 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. Hill et al., also on certiorari to the same court. 93-1828, Bryant, Attorney General of Arkansas v.
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