870
Thomas, J., dissenting
Accordingly, the fact that the Constitution specifies certain qualifications that the Framers deemed necessary to protect the competence of the National Legislature does not imply that it strips the people of the individual States of the power to protect their own interests by adding other requirements for their own representatives.
The people of other States could legitimately complain if the people of Arkansas decide, in a particular election, to send a 6-year-old to Congress. But the Constitution gives the people of other States no basis to complain if the people of Arkansas elect a freshman representative in preference to a long-term incumbent. That being the case, it is hard to see why the rights of the people of other States have been violated when the people of Arkansas decide to enact a more general disqualification of long-term incumbents. Such a disqualification certainly is subject to scrutiny under other constitutional provisions, such as the First and Fourteenth Amendments. But as long as the candidate whom they send to Congress meets the constitutional age, citizenship, and inhabitancy requirements, the people of Arkansas have not violated the Qualifications Clauses.
This conclusion is buttressed by our reluctance to read constitutional provisions to preclude state power by negative implication. The very structure of the Constitution counsels such hesitation. After all, § 10 of Article I contains a brief list of express prohibitions on the States. Cf. Cipol-lone v. Liggett Group, Inc., 505 U. S. 504, 517-519 (1992) (Stevens, J.) (applying the expressio unius maxim to conclude that Congress' inclusion of an express pre-emption clause in a federal statute implies that state laws beyond the reach of that clause are not pre-empted); Nevada v. Hall, 440 U. S. 410, 425 (1979) (Stevens, J.) (suggesting that in light of the Tenth Amendment and the Constitution's express prohibitions on the States, "caution should be exercised before concluding that unstated limitations on state power were intended by the Framers"). Many of the prohibitions listed in
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