What Are the Qualifications to Be House of Representatives

Article I, Section 2, Clause two:

No Person shall be a Representative who shall non take attained to the Age of twenty five Years, and been seven Years a Citizen of the Us, and who shall not, when elected, exist an Inhabitant of that State in which he shall be chosen.

A question much disputed simply now seemingly settled is whether a condition of eligibility must exist at the time of the election or whether it is sufficient that eligibility exist when the Fellow member-elect presents himself to take the oath of part. Although the language of the clause expressly makes residency in the state a condition at the time of election, it at present appears established in congressional exercise that the historic period and citizenship qualifications demand simply be 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 age or term of citizenship have been admitted as soon as they became qualified.2

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 chosen . . . are defined and stock-still in the constitution; and are unalterable by the legislature." 3 Until the Ceremonious War, the issue was not raised, the only actions taken by either Business firm befitting to the idea that the qualifications for membership could not be enlarged past statute or practice.four But in the passions aroused past the fratricidal conflict, Congress enacted a law requiring its members to take an oath that they had never been disloyal to the National Government.5 Several persons were refused seats by both Houses because of charges of disloyalty,6 and thereafter House practice, and Senate exercise as well, was erratic.seven But in Powell v. McCormack ,8 it was conclusively established that the qualifications listed in clause ii are exclusive9 and that Congress could not add to them by excluding Members-elect not meeting the additional qualifications.ten

Powell was excluded from the 90th Congress on grounds that he had asserted an unwarranted privilege and amnesty from the process of a state court, that he had wrongfully diverted House funds for his own uses, and that he had made false reports on the expenditures of strange currency.11 The Court determination 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's ability under Commodity I, § 5 to judge the qualifications of its Members was limited to ascertaining the presence or absence of the standing qualifications prescribed in Article I, § 2, cl. 2, and possibly in other express provisions of the Constitution.12 The conclusion followed considering the English parliamentary practise and the colonial legislative practice at the fourth dimension of the drafting of the Constitution, subsequently some earlier deviations, had settled into a policy that exclusion was a power exercisable only when the Member-elect failed to come across a standing qualification,xiii because in the Ramble Convention the Framers had defeated provisions assuasive Congress by statute either to create belongings qualifications or to create additional qualifications without limitation,fourteen and because both Hamilton and Madison in the Federalist Papers and Hamilton in the New York ratifying convention had strongly urged that the Constitution prescribed exclusive qualifications for Members of Congress.15

Further, the Courtroom observed that the early practice of Congress, with many of the Framers serving, was consistently express to the view that exclusion could exist exercised merely with regard to a Member-elect failing to encounter a qualification expressly prescribed in the Constitution. Not until the Civil War did reverse precedents appear, and later exercise was mixed.16 Finally, even were the intent of the Framers less clear, said the Court, it would withal be compelled to interpret the power to exclude narrowly. "A fundamental principle of our representative democracy is, in Hamilton'southward words, 'that the people should choose whom they please to govern them.' 2 Elliot'southward Debates 257. As Madison pointed out at the Convention, this principle is undermined as much past limiting whom the people can select equally by limiting the franchise itself. In credible agreement with this basic philosophy, the Convention adopted his suggestion limiting the power to expel. To let substantially that same power to be exercised nether the guise of judging qualifications, would exist to ignore Madison's alert, borne out in the Wilkes case and some of Congress'due south own post-Civil War exclusion cases, against 'vesting an improper and dangerous power in the Legislature.' " 17 Thus, the Court appears to say, to allow the House to exclude Powell on this basis of qualifications of its own choosing would impinge on the interests of his constituents in effective participation in the electoral process, an interest which could be protected by a narrow interpretation of Congressional ability.eighteen

The result in Powell had been foreshadowed when the Court held that the exclusion of a Fellow member-elect by a land legislature because of objections he had uttered to certain national policies constituted a violation of the First Amendment and was void.19 In the form of that decision, the Court denied state legislators the power to look behind the willingness of any legislator to accept the adjuration to support the Constitution of the United states, prescribed past Commodity Half-dozen, 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's view that the unfettered discretion of the legislative branch to exclude members could exist abused in behalf of political, religious or other orthodoxies.21 The Offset Amendment holding and the belongings with regard to testing the sincerity with which the adjuration of office is taken is no doubt as applicable to the The states Congress equally to land legislatures.

However much Congress may have deviated from the principle that the qualifications listed in the Constitution are exclusive when the event has been congressional enlargement of those qualifications, it has been uniform in rejecting efforts past the states to enlarge the qualifications. Thus, the Firm in 1807 seated a Member-elect who was challenged as non beingness in compliance with a state police force imposing a twelve-month residency requirement in the district, rather than the federal requirement of being an inhabitant of the land at the time of election; the country requirement, the House resolved, was unconstitutional.22 Similarly, both the House and Senate have seated other Members-elect who did not meet additional state qualifications or who suffered particular state disqualifications on eligibility, such as running for Congress while property particular state offices.

The Supreme Court reached the same conclusion every bit to state power, albeit by a surprisingly shut 5-4 vote, in U.S. Term Limits, Inc. v. Thornton .23 Arkansas, along with twenty-two other states, all but 2 by denizen initiatives, had limited the number of terms that Members of Congress may serve. In striking down the Arkansas term limits, the Courtroom adamant that the Constitution's qualifications clauses24 plant sectional qualifications for Members that may non be added to either by Congress or united states of america.25 Six years afterward, the Court 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' instruction 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 usa in the nation'south early years,27 and these differences over text, creation, and practise derived from disagreement about the fundamental principle underlying the Constitution'due south adoption.

In the dissent's view, the Constitution was the effect of the resolution of the peoples of the separate states to create the National Government. The conclusion to exist drawn from this was that the peoples in the states agreed to surrender merely those powers expressly forbidden them and those limited powers that they had delegated to the Federal Authorities expressly or by necessary implication. They retained all other powers and all the same retain them. Thus, "[w]here the Constitution is silent about the exercise of a particular power—that is, where the Constitution does non speak either expressly or by necessary implication—the Federal Government lacks that ability and the States relish information technology." 28 The Constitution'due south silence as to authority to impose additional qualifications meant that this ability resides in the states.

The bulk's views were radically dissimilar. Afterward the adoption of the Constitution, the states had ii 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. "Every bit Justice Story recognized, 'the states tin can practise no powers any, which exclusively jump out of the existence of the national government, which the constitution does not consul to them. . . . No state can say, that it 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 the states the ability to prescribe qualifications for Members of Congress, u.s.a. did not accept any such power.30

Evidently, the opinions in this case reflect more than a decision on this detail dispute. They rather represent conflicting philosophies inside the Court respecting the scope of national ability in relation to the states, an issue at the core of many controversies today.

Footnotes

1

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

2

i Hinds' Precedents of the House of Representatives § 418 (1907); 79 Cong. Rec. 9841–42 (1935); cf. i Hinds, supra note 2, at § 429.

iii

No. sixty (J. Cooke ed. 1961), 409. Run into also 2 J. Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the Usa §§ 623–27 (1833) (relating to the power of united states of america to add qualifications).

four

All the instances appear to exist, however, cases in which the contest arose out of a claimed additional state qualification.

five

Human activity of July 2, 1862, 12 Stat. 502. Note also the disqualification written into § 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment.

half dozen

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

7

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

8

395 U.S. 486 (1969). The Court divided 8 to one, Justice Stewart dissenting on the ground that the example was moot. Powell's continuing validity was affirmed in U.Southward. Term Limits, Inc. v. Thornton, 514 U.S. 779 (1995), both by the Court in its property that the qualifications set out in the Constitution are exclusive and may not be added to by either Congress or the states, id. at 787–98, and past the dissenters, who would hold that Congress, for different reasons could non add together to qualifications, although u.s.a. could. Id. at 875–76.

9

The Court declined to reach the question whether the Constitution in fact does impose other qualifications. 395 U.S. at 520 n.41 (possibly Article I, § 3, cl. 7, disqualifying persons impeached, Article I, § half dozen, cl. two, incompatible offices, and § 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment). It is also possible that the oath provision of Article Half dozen, cl. 3, could be considered a qualification. See Bond 5. Floyd, 385 U.S. 116, 129–131 (1966).

10

395 U.S. at 550 .

11

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

12

Powell five. McCormack, 395 U.S. 486, 518–47 (1969).

xiii

395 U.Due south. at 522–31 .

fourteen

395 U.S. at 532–39 .

15

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 being represented past the person of their choice is thus analogized to their constitutionally secured right to cast a ballot and have it counted in general elections, Ex parte Yarbrough, 110 U.S. 651 (1884), and in primary elections, U.s. v. Classic, 313 U.South. 299 (1941), to bandage a election undiluted in strength because of unequally populated districts, Wesberry v. Sanders, 376 U.S. 1 (1964), and to cast a vote for candidates of their pick unfettered by onerous restrictions on candidate qualification for the ballot. Williams v. Rhodes, 393 U.Due south. 23 (1968).

19

Bond 5. Floyd, 385 U.S. 116 (1966).

twenty

385 U.Due south. at 129–31, 132, 135 .

21

385 U.S. at 135 north.13 .

22

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

23

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

24

Article I, § 2, cl. two, provides that a person may authorize equally a Representative if she is at to the lowest degree 25 years old, has been a United States citizen for at to the lowest degree 7 years, and is an inhabitant, at the time of the election, of the country in which she is chosen. The qualifications established for Senators, Article I, § 3, cl. 3, are an historic period of xxx years, 9 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 increment qualifications, the States do. 514 U.S. at 845 .

26

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

27

Run into Sullivan, Dueling Sovereignties: U.Due south. Term Limits, Inc. v. Thornton, 109 Harv. L. Rev. 78 (1995).

28

514 U.South. at 848 (Justice Thomas dissenting). Run into generally id. at 846–65.

29

514 U.S. at 802 .

30

514 U.S. at 798–805 . See also id. at 838–45 (Justice Kennedy concurring). The Courtroom applied like reasoning in Cook v. Gralike, 531 U.S. 510, 522–23 (2001), invalidating ballot labels identifying congressional candidates who had not pledged to support term limits. Considering congressional offices arise from the Constitution, the Courtroom explained, no potency to regulate these offices could accept preceded the Constitution and been reserved to the states, and the election labels were not valid exercise of the power granted by Commodity I, § 4 to regulate the "way" 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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