Qualification for Election to the House of Representatives

Article I, Section ii, Clause 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 U.s., and who shall non, when elected, be an Inhabitant of that Land in which he shall be chosen.

A question much disputed but now seemingly settled is whether a condition of eligibility must be at the time of the ballot or whether it is sufficient that eligibility be when the Member-elect presents himself to take the adjuration of office. Although the language of the clause expressly makes residency in the state a condition at the time of election, it now appears established in congressional exercise that the age and citizenship qualifications need only exist met when the Member-elect is to be sworn.1 Thus, persons elected to either the House of Representatives or the Senate before attaining the required historic period or term of citizenship have been admitted equally presently equally they became qualified.two

Writing in The Federalist with reference to the election of Members of Congress, Hamilton firmly stated that "[t]he qualifications of the persons who may . . . be called . . . are defined and fixed in the constitution; and are unalterable by the legislature." 3 Until the Civil State of war, the issue was not raised, the simply deportment taken by either Firm conforming to the idea that the qualifications for membership could not be enlarged by statute or practice.4 Simply in the passions angry past the fratricidal conflict, Congress enacted a law requiring its members to accept an oath that they had never been disloyal to the National Government.v Several persons were refused seats past both Houses because of charges of disloyalty,vi and thereafter House practice, and Senate exercise as well, was erratic.vii But in Powell v. McCormack ,8 information technology was conclusively established that the qualifications listed in clause 2 are exclusive9 and that Congress could not add to them by excluding Members-elect not meeting the boosted qualifications.10

Powell was excluded from the 90th Congress on grounds that he had asserted an unwarranted privilege and immunity from the procedure of a land court, that he had wrongfully diverted House funds for his ain uses, and that he had made false reports on the expenditures of strange currency.11 The Court conclusion that he had been wrongfully excluded proceeded in the main from the Courtroom's analysis of historical developments, the Convention debates, and textual considerations. This process led the Court to conclude that Congress'southward power under Commodity I, § 5 to estimate the qualifications of its Members was express to ascertaining the presence or absenteeism of the standing qualifications prescribed in Article I, § two, cl. two, and possibly in other express provisions of the Constitution.12 The conclusion followed because the English parliamentary practice and the colonial legislative practice at the fourth dimension of the drafting of the Constitution, after some earlier deviations, had settled into a policy that exclusion was a ability exercisable just when the Fellow member-elect failed to see a standing qualification,13 because in the Constitutional Convention the Framers had defeated provisions allowing Congress by statute either to create property qualifications or to create additional qualifications without limitation,xiv and considering both Hamilton and Madison in the Federalist Papers and Hamilton in the New York ratifying convention had strongly urged that the Constitution prescribed sectional qualifications for Members of Congress.15

Further, the Court observed that the early on exercise of Congress, with many of the Framers serving, was consistently limited to the view that exclusion could exist exercised only with regard to a Member-elect failing to see a qualification expressly prescribed in the Constitution. Non until the Civil War did contrary precedents announced, and later practice was mixed.16 Finally, even were the intent of the Framers less clear, said the Courtroom, information technology would however be compelled to interpret the power to exclude narrowly. "A fundamental principle of our representative democracy is, in Hamilton's words, 'that the people should choose whom they please to govern them.' 2 Elliot's Debates 257. Every bit Madison pointed out at the Convention, this principle is undermined equally much past limiting whom the people can select as by limiting the franchise itself. In credible agreement with this basic philosophy, the Convention adopted his suggestion limiting the power to miscarry. To allow essentially that same power to be exercised nether the guise of judging qualifications, would exist to ignore Madison's alert, borne out in the Wilkes example and some of Congress's own post-Ceremonious War exclusion cases, against 'vesting an improper and dangerous power in the Legislature.' " 17 Thus, the Courtroom appears to say, to allow the Business firm to exclude Powell on this footing of qualifications of its ain choosing would impinge on the interests of his constituents in constructive participation in the electoral procedure, an interest which could be protected past a narrow interpretation of Congressional power.18

The issue in Powell had been foreshadowed when the Court held that the exclusion of a Member-elect by a state legislature because of objections he had uttered to certain national policies constituted a violation of the First Amendment and was void.19 In the course of that conclusion, the Court denied state legislators the ability to wait behind the willingness of whatever legislator to take the oath to back up the Constitution of the U.s.a., prescribed past Article Six, cl. 3, to test his sincerity in taking information technology.20 The unanimous Court noted the views of Madison and Hamilton on the exclusivity of the qualifications set out in the Constitution and alluded to Madison'south view that the unfettered discretion of the legislative co-operative to exclude members could be abused in behalf of political, religious or other orthodoxies.21 The First Amendment property and the holding with regard to testing the sincerity with which the oath of office is taken is no doubtfulness every bit applicable to the The states Congress as to state legislatures.

Still much Congress may have deviated from the principle that the qualifications listed in the Constitution are sectional when the upshot has been congressional enlargement of those qualifications, information technology has been compatible in rejecting efforts by us to enlarge the qualifications. Thus, the House in 1807 seated a Member-elect who was challenged as non being in compliance with a state constabulary imposing a twelve-month residency requirement in the district, rather than the federal requirement of being an inhabitant of the state at the time of election; the land requirement, the House resolved, was unconstitutional.22 Similarly, both the House and Senate have seated other Members-elect who did not run across additional state qualifications or who suffered item state disqualifications on eligibility, such as running for Congress while property particular country offices.

The Supreme Court reached the same conclusion as to state power, albeit by a surprisingly close 5-iv vote, in U.S. Term Limits, Inc. 5. Thornton .23 Arkansas, along with twenty-two other states, all only ii by citizen initiatives, had limited the number of terms that Members of Congress may serve. In striking downwards the Arkansas term limits, the Court determined that the Constitution'due south qualifications clauses24 establish sectional qualifications for Members that may not exist added to either by Congress or united states.25 Six years later, the Courtroom relied on Thornton to invalidate a Missouri police force requiring that labels be placed on ballots aslope the names of congressional candidates who had "disregarded voters' educational activity on term limits" or declined to pledge back up for term limits.26

Both majority and dissenting opinions in Thornton were richly embellished with disputatious arguments well-nigh the text of the Constitution, the history of its drafting and ratification, and the practices of Congress and the states in the nation's early years,27 and these differences over text, cosmos, and practice derived from disagreement most the cardinal principle underlying the Constitution's adoption.

In the dissent'southward view, the Constitution was the result of the resolution of the peoples of the separate states to create the National Authorities. The determination to exist drawn from this was that the peoples in the states agreed to give up only those powers expressly forbidden them and those limited powers that they had delegated to the Federal Government expressly or past necessary implication. They retained all other powers and still retain them. Thus, "[w]here the Constitution is silent about the practise of a item ability—that is, where the Constitution does non speak either expressly or by necessary implication—the Federal Government lacks that power and united states of america relish it." 28 The Constitution'south silence as to authority to impose additional qualifications meant that this ability resides in the states.

The majority's views were radically different. After the adoption of the Constitution, usa had two kinds of powers: reserved powers that they had before the founding and that were not surrendered to the Federal Government, and those powers delegated to them by the Constitution. It followed that the states could have no reserved powers with respect to the Federal Regime. "As Justice Story recognized, 'the states can exercise no powers any, which exclusively spring out of the existence of the national government, which the constitution does not delegate to them. . . . No state can say, that information technology has reserved, what it never possessed.'" 29 Usa could not earlier the founding have possessed powers to legislate respecting the Federal Government, and, because the Constitution did not delegate to united states the power to prescribe qualifications for Members of Congress, the states did not have any such ability.30

Plainly, the opinions in this example reflect more than a decision on this particular dispute. They rather represent conflicting philosophies within the Court respecting the scope of national ability in relation to u.s.a., an issue at the cadre of many controversies today.

Footnotes

1

See S. Rep. No. 904, 74th Congress, 1st sess. (1935), reprinted in 79 Cong. Rec. 9651–9653 (1935).

two

1 Hinds' Precedents of the House of Representatives § 418 (1907); 79 Cong. Rec. 9841–42 (1935); cf. one Hinds, supra note two, at § 429.

3

No. 60 (J. Cooke ed. 1961), 409. See also 2 J. Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States §§ 623–27 (1833) (relating to the power of u.s.a. to add qualifications).

4

All the instances announced to be, nonetheless, cases in which the competition arose out of a claimed additional state qualification.

v

Act of July two, 1862, 12 Stat. 502. Notation also the disqualification written into § 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment.

6

1 Hinds' Precedents of the House of Representatives §§ 451, 449, 457 (1907).

7

In 1870, the Business firm excluded a Member-elect who had been re-elected later resigning earlier in the same Congress when expulsion proceedings were instituted against him for selling appointments to the Military Academy. Id. at § 464. A Member-elect was excluded in 1899 because of his practice of polygamy, id. at 474–80, but the Senate refused, afterward adopting a rule requiring a two-thirds vote, to exclude a Member-elect on those grounds. Id. at §§ 481–483. The House twice excluded a socialist Member-elect in the wake of World State of war I on allegations of disloyalty. 6 Cannon'southward Precedents of the House of Representatives §§ 56–58 (1935). Run into likewise S. Rep. No. 1010, 77th Congress, 2d sess. (1942), and R. Hupman, Senate Election, Expulsion and Censure Cases From 1789 to 1960, South. Doctor. No. 71, 87th Congress, 2d sess. (1962), 140 (dealing with the effort to exclude Senator Langer of North Dakota).

8

395 U.Southward. 486 (1969). The Courtroom divided 8 to one, Justice Stewart dissenting on the basis that the example was moot. Powell'south continuing validity was affirmed in U.Due south. Term Limits, Inc. 5. Thornton, 514 U.S. 779 (1995), both by the Court in its holding that the qualifications prepare out in the Constitution are exclusive and may not exist added to by either Congress or the states, id. at 787–98, and by the dissenters, who would concur that Congress, for unlike reasons could not add to qualifications, although united states of america could. Id. at 875–76.

ix

The Courtroom declined to reach the question whether the Constitution in fact does impose other qualifications. 395 U.S. at 520 north.41 (possibly Commodity I, § 3, cl. 7, disqualifying persons impeached, Article I, § 6, cl. 2, incompatible offices, and § 3 of the Fourteenth Subpoena). It is also possible that the oath provision of Article VI, cl. 3, could be considered a qualification. Run into Bond v. Floyd, 385 U.S. 116, 129–131 (1966).

ten

395 U.Due south. at 550 .

eleven

H. Rep. No. 27, 90th Congress, 1st sess. (1967); 395 U.Due south. at 489–493 .

12

Powell v. McCormack, 395 U.Due south. 486, 518–47 (1969).

13

395 U.S. at 522–31 .

fourteen

395 U.S. at 532–39 .

fifteen

395 U.South. at 539–41 .

16

395 U.South. at 541–47 .

17

2 Records of the Federal Convention of 1787, at 249 (Max Farrand ed., 1937); 395 U.S. at 547–48 .

18

The protection of the voters' interest in beingness represented past the person of their choice is thus analogized to their constitutionally secured right to bandage a ballot and have it counted in general elections, Ex parte Yarbrough, 110 U.Due south. 651 (1884), and in primary elections, The states v. Classic, 313 U.S. 299 (1941), to cast a ballot undiluted in strength considering of unequally populated districts, Wesberry v. Sanders, 376 U.South. i (1964), and to cast a vote for candidates of their choice unfettered by onerous restrictions on candidate qualification for the ballot. Williams v. Rhodes, 393 U.S. 23 (1968).

19

Bail v. Floyd, 385 U.S. 116 (1966).

20

385 U.S. at 129–31, 132, 135 .

21

385 U.S. at 135 n.13 .

22

1 Hinds' Precedents of the Firm of Representatives § 414 (1907).

23

514 U.S. 779 (1995). The majority was composed of Justice Stevens (writing the opinion of the Courtroom) and Justices Kennedy, Souter, Ginsburg, and Breyer. Dissenting were Justice Thomas (writing the opinion) and Primary Justice Rehnquist and Justices O'Connor and Scalia. Id. at 845.

24

Article I, § 2, cl. ii, provides that a person may qualify equally a Representative if she is at least 25 years old, has been a U.s.a. citizen for at to the lowest degree 7 years, and is an inhabitant, at the fourth dimension of the ballot, of the land in which she is called. The qualifications established for Senators, Article I, § iii, cl. 3, are an age of 30 years, nine years' citizenship, and being an inhabitant of the state at the time of election.

25

The four-Justice dissent argued that while Congress has no power to increase qualifications, usa do. 514 U.South. at 845 .

26

Cook v. Gralike, 531 U.S. 510 (2001).

27

See Sullivan, Dueling Sovereignties: U.S. Term Limits, Inc. v. Thornton, 109 Harv. L. Rev. 78 (1995).

28

514 U.S. at 848 (Justice Thomas dissenting). See generally id. at 846–65.

29

514 U.S. at 802 .

30

514 U.South. at 798–805 . See also id. at 838–45 (Justice Kennedy concurring). The Courtroom applied similar reasoning in Cook 5. Gralike, 531 U.South. 510, 522–23 (2001), invalidating ballot labels identifying congressional candidates who had not pledged to back up term limits. Because congressional offices arise from the Constitution, the Court explained, no authority to regulate these offices could have preceded the Constitution and been reserved to the states, and the ballot labels were not valid do of the ability granted past Commodity I, § 4 to regulate the "manner" of holding elections. See discussion under Legislation Protecting Electoral Process, infra.

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Source: https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution-conan/article-1/section-2/clause-2/qualifications-of-members-of-the-house-of-representatives

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