836
Opinion of the Court
We do not understand the dissent to contest our primary thesis, namely, that if the qualifications for Congress are fixed in the Constitution, then a state-passed measure with the avowed purpose of imposing indirectly such an additional qualification violates the Constitution. The dissent, instead, raises two objections, challenging the assertion that the Arkansas amendment has the likely effect of creating a qualification, post, at 917-919, and suggesting that the true intent of Amendment 73 was not to evade the Qualifications Clauses but rather to simply "level the playing field," post, at 922. Neither of these objections has merit.
As to the first, it is simply irrelevant to our holding today. As we note above in n. 45, our prior cases strongly suggest that write-in candidates will have only a slim chance of success, and the Arkansas plurality agreed. However, we expressly do not rest on this Court's prior observations regarding write-in candidates. Instead, we hold that a state amendment is unconstitutional when it has the likely effect of handicapping a class of candidates and has the sole purpose of creating additional qualifications indirectly. Thus, the dissent's discussion of the evidence concerning the possibility that a popular incumbent will win a write-in election is simply beside the point.
As to the second argument, we find wholly unpersuasive the dissent's suggestion that Amendment 73 was designed merely to "level the playing field." As we have noted, supra, at 829-830, it is obvious that the sole purpose of Amendment 73 was to limit the terms of elected officials, both state and federal, and that Amendment 73, therefore, may not stand.
853, 859 (CA2 1980) ("New York's purpose is to regulate the judicial office that [the candidate] holds, not the Congressional office he seeks"). Moreover, as now-Chief Judge Newman observed while upholding similar restrictions imposed by New York, such provisions "plac[e] no obstacle between [a candidate] and the ballot or his nomination or his election. He is free to run and the people are free to choose him." Id., at 858.
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