822
Opinion of the Court
The Framers deemed this principle critical when they discussed qualifications. For example, during the debates on residency requirements, Morris noted that in the House, "the people at large, not the States, are represented." 2 Farrand 217 (emphasis in original) (footnote omitted). Similarly, George Read noted that the Framers "were forming a Nati[ona]l Gov[ernmen]t and such a regulation would correspond little with the idea that we were one people." Ibid. (emphasis in original). James Wilson "enforced the same consideration." Ibid.
Consistent with these views, the constitutional structure provides for a uniform salary to be paid from the national treasury, allows the States but a limited role in federal elections, and maintains strict checks on state interference with the federal election process. The Constitution also provides that the qualifications of the representatives of each State will be judged by the representatives of the entire Nation. The Constitution thus creates a uniform national body representing the interests of a single people.
Permitting individual States to formulate diverse qualifications for their representatives would result in a patchwork of state qualifications, undermining the uniformity and the national character that the Framers envisioned and sought to ensure. Cf. McCulloch v. Maryland, 4 Wheat., at 428- 429 ("Those means are not given by the people of a particular State, not given by the constituents of the legislature, . . . but by the people of all the States. They are given by all, for the benefit of all—and upon theory, should be subjected to that government only which belongs to all"). Such a patchwork would also sever the direct link that the Framers found so critical between the National Government and the people of the United States.32
32 There is little significance to the fact that Amendment 73 was adopted by a popular vote, rather than as an Act of the state legislature. See n. 19, supra. In fact, none of the petitioners argues that the constitutionality of a state law would depend on the method of its adoption. This is proper,
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